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MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


By SEWELL FORD 


TORCHY 

TRYING OUT TORCHY 
ON WITH TORCHY 
TORCHY PRIVATE, SEC. 
WILT THOU TORCHY 
THE HOUSE OF TORCHY 
TORCHY AND VEE 
TORCHY AS A PA 

SHORTY McCABE’S ODD 
NUMBERS 

SHORTY McCABE ON THE 
JOB 

SHORTY McCABE GETS THE 
HAIL 

SHORTY McCABE LOOKS 
’EM OVER 

MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY 
McCABE 


MEET ’EM WITH 
SHORTY McCABE 


BY 

SEWELL FORD 

II 



NEW YORK 
EDWARD J. CLODE 





Copyright, 1919 , 1920 , by 
SEWELL FORD 


COPYBIGHT, 192 §, BY 

EDWARD J. CLODE 


/ 


All Rights Reseved 


Printed in the United States of America 


M 14 1921 ' 

©CI.A605382 • 


4 > 


V 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Shorty on an Uplift Deal 8 

II. Shorty and the Fishhound 18 

III. How They Get That Way 32 

IV. Why the Ammi Line Keeps On 48 

V. Two Guesses on Martha 62 

VI. Looking On at a Tie 77 

VII. Sully Plays a Hunch 93 

VIII. Seeing Things with Sis 107 

IX. Gangway for Sudie Belle 124 

X. The Case of a Pink Red 140 

XI. Hobbs and the Gold Apples 154 

XII. When Victor Got Going 167 

XIII. The Part Warry Missed 182 

XIV. Shorty Hears from Tamarack 195 

XV. An Atrium That Went Wrong 209 

XVI. Little Sully Speaks Up 224 

XVII. A Little Late for Omar 238 

XVIII. Wish Day with Shorty 252 

XIX. Leaving It to Sully 265 

XX. The Bickfords in a Brother Act 277 

XXI. Kenneth Shows Class 291 




MEET ’EM WITH 
SHORTY McCABE 


i 

SHORTY ON AN UPLIFT DEAL 

H AVING a friend like Pinckney has its draw- 
backs, after all. Not that I’m knocking him, 
understand. And I expect most folks would 
he more or less chesty about having him on their 
list, even as a noddin’ acquaintance, unless it was 
some of these parlor Bolsheviks who go around 
grouchin’ about the idle rich. And speaking of that 
class, while you might find some that are richer, I 
don’t know where you’d dig up a specimen that was 
idler than Lionel Pinckney Ogden Bruce. 

But I must say he does it well. You know so 
many of these young plutes who’ve been brought up 
on a six-figure income seem to get so bored with 
themselves and everybody else that you almost feel 
sorry for ’em. You see ’em yawnin’ in the club 
windows, mopin’ around at their country places, or 
rollin’ by in their limousines lookin’ peeved and 
moody, and you wonder why they ain’t happier. 
But Pinckney ain’t that kind. He don’t drag 
i 


2 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


around tryin’ to find some new way of killin’ time. 
Not him. His program of events is always full up; 
yet what it’s all about he couldn’t tell you if he 
tried, which he wouldn’t. Anyway, work has no 
place on it. Absolutely. I taxed him with it once. 

4 4 Honest now, Pinckney,” says I, 4 4 can you re- 
member ever havin’ done anything useful in your 
life?” 

4 4 Let’s see,” says he, rubbin’ his chin with the 
crook end of his walking stick thoughtful. 
44 Wouldn’t you count being best man at some twenty 
odd weddings?” 

4 4 Ruled out,” say I. 4 4 You may think that’s your 
steady job, but it ain’t; it’s just a habit. One more 
guess.” 

4 4 Well,” says he, 44 I don’t know that I can recall 
— Oh, I say though ! Surely I can. Didn’t I invent 
a new cocktail once? Why the fellows still talk 
about ” 

4 4 Disqualified,” says I. 4 4 Besides, you’d better 
forget that you ever had criminal instincts like that. 
In a year or two more a confession of that sort 
would send you to jail.” 

4 4 You mean,” says Pinckney, 44 that cocktail mix- 
ing will be regarded as compounding a felony? Oh, 
I say, Shorty, but that’s rather good, you know.” 

4 4 You ’re welcome to the serial rights,” says I. 

And it’s always more or less like that when 
Pinckney strays into the Physical Culture Studio 
here — just one bright little thing after another. As 
far as that goes it’s cheerin’ and chirky. But the 
next thing you know he’s let you in for some fool 


SHORTY ON AN UPLIFT DEAL 3 

stunt or other that may turn out all right or may 
not. 

For he’s a born kidder, Pinckney. Life ain’t no 
vale of weeps for him. It’s a joke, and he’s bound 
to have it so, no matter what happens. Even when 
his wife’s aunt Julia appears unexpected from 
Northfield, Mass., and camps down for a two weeks’ 
visit. From all I’ve heard about her, too, that’s 
some acid test. Mrs. Bruce admits it herself. 

Seems Aunt Julia is about as popular with her 
relations as an ex-grand duke would be at an Emma 
Goldman testimonial meeting. She’s the fam’ly 
regulator, Aunt Julia is; a volunteer committee of 
one who has been runnin’ a mail order advice fac- 
tory for years, tollin’ her folks what they ought to 
do and what they oughtn’t, ’specially the last. And 
I gather that gettin’ a letter from Aunt Julia is 
about as pleasin’ an experience as wakin’ up on the 
sleepin’ porch after a cold rain has been drivin’ in 
on you for half an hour or so. 

So you can guess why she’s the only one of her 
fam’ly left in Northfield. Lives in a fine old house 
up there, I understand, and hardly ever leaves the 
place except for her annual trip to Boston, where 
she takes in the Spring flower show and lays in a 
stock of seeds and bulbs for her garden. But she ’s 
an active old dame. From her house on top of one 
of them big hills she has her sharp eyes on most of 
the world, not forgettin’ the heathen in foreign 
lands. 

Next to regulatin’ her fam’ly and growin’ prize 
chrysanthemums that’s her big side line — reformin’ 


4 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


the heathen. Being such a free contributor to the 
missionary fund she has her say as to just how the 
reformin’ shall be done, too. So even in far-off 
China and on India’s coral strand she manages to 
mix in. What chance then does Pinckney stand of 
escapin’, livin’ only a couple of hundred miles from 
her? This was the first time, though, that she’d 
ever come in person. He was tellin’ me about it 
the other day. 

Seems there was another nephew of hers in New 
York, a sporty young hick that she’d tried to make 
a missionary of and failed. When she’d cut his 
allowance down to one-third he’d come here and 
got a job as salesman for an automobile firm. Also 
when she’d write askin’ him how he spent his even- 
ings and what sort of friends he was making and so 
on he’d wire back some tommyrot like: 4 ‘Sorry, 
Auntie, dear, but the dealers are all out of your 
favorite brand of cigarettes. Why don’t you try 
rolling your ownf” So she’d come down to do a 
little sleuthing for herself, incidentally favorin’ the 
Bruces with a visit. 

“Charming old girl,” says Pinckney. “So per- 
fectly frank about pointing out one’s faults. I am 
making a list of mine, going to have it framed when 
it’s finished and send it to her for a Christmas pres- 
ent. Perhaps you would like a copy, too, Shorty?” 

“Gwan!” says I, “you don’t deserve a nice old 
aunt like that.” 

“That’s the worst of it, Shorty!” says he. “I do 
not. And I enjoy having her here so much. Makes 
me feel selfish. I’ll tell you what, though; suppose 


SHORTY ON AN UPLIFT DEAL 5 

I bring her around and share her with you some 
afternoon! Eh?” 

Course, I only grins unsuspicious and pays no 
more attention to it than I do to most of his josh. 
But I say, you never know what fool thing Pinckney 
will think of next. Here only the other day as I 
comes strollin’ back from lunch I finds a taxicab 
waitin’ in front of the studio, with him and this high- 
chested old girl in the purple lid waitin’ inside. 

She don’t look so fierce, I’ll admit, only her chin 
might remind you some of Pershing’s and them 
shrewd eyes of hers are the kind that never wavers 
or flinches from anything. My guess is that she’d 
make a good lion tamer if she hadn’t wasted all her 
early years trainin’ her fam’ly. Outside of that 
she’s just a rather classy looking old dame with 
white hair and fresh-colored cheeks. 

“Oh, I say, Shorty,” hails Pinckney, “where does 
one go to find the homes of the lower classes?” 

“Eh?” says I, starin’ puzzled. 

“The haunts of the undeserving poor?” goes on 
Pinckney. “Auntie wants to see them. I’ve driven 
her down Sixth Avenue as far as Fourteenth Street, 
but she doesn’t seem satisfied. She wishes to 


“Your wretched slums,” breaks in Auntie, “not 
your third-rate shopping district. Where are the 
homes of your miserable poor?” 

“Oh!” says I. “You want to go down and cross 
Canal until you come to such streets as Henry and 
Rivington and ” 

“There!” says Pinckney. “I was sure Professor 


6 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


McCabe could tell us just where to go, Auntie. But 
the only safe way is to take him along. Eh? What 
say?” 

“He could hardly be such a poor guide as you 
are, Pinckney,” says Aunt Julia, ‘ ‘so let him come.” 

“You see?” says Pinckney, noddin’ to me. “You 
have been chosen.” 

“Thanks,” says I, “but you’d better count me 
out this time. I might not qualify, after all.” 

“Nonsense, young man!” says Aunt Julia, 
pushin’ open the taxi door impulsive. “Get in and 
tell the driver where to go.” 

And somehow when she tells you to do a thing 
you do it. Anyway, before I could frame any argu- 
ment as to why I couldn’t go I was on my way. 
Inside of half an hour, too, I was showin’ Aunt 
Julia the real thing in slums. You know what some 
of them streets on the lower East Side are like — 
swarmin’ with kids and push carts, babies playin’ 
in the gutter, more babies clutterin’ the doorsteps 
and leanin’ from fire escapes, half -naked and dirty. 
The regulation thing. 

Seems it’s all new to Auntie, though. She works 
up a fresh shudder at every block. “Such sordid 
misery ! ’ ’ says she. ‘ ‘ Such utter wretchedness ! Tell 
me, what is being done to alleviate all this? What 
are you doing?” 

“Shorty, what are we doing?” demands Pinck- 
ney, with that cut-up twinkle in his eye. 

“Why,” says I, “I expect we’re stayin’ away 
from it as much as we can.” 

“And do you mean to tell me,” comes back 


SHORTY ON AN UPLIFT DEAL 7 

Auntie, 4 4 that you feel no sense of responsibility 
for such dirt and poverty and crime ?” 

I shrugs my shoulders. “You see ma’am,” says 
I, “I didn’t invent the East Side. It was here when 
I was born.” 

“There you are, Auntie!” says Pinckney. “The 
perfect alibi. Interesting thing, though, poverty. 
I understand books have been written about it. 
Some day I mean to look one up. Really.” 

“Bah!” says Auntie. “You have a frivolous 
nature. You are callous to the cries of suffering 
humanity. And you ought to feel ashamed, both 
of you.” 

“So I would, too, if I’d known about it before,” 
says Pinckney. “But, you see, Auntie, I am just 
discovering it. With Professor McCabe, however, 
it’s quite different. He’s known about it all along, 
yet he goes on in his careless frivolous way, with- 
out shedding a tear. Shorty, perhaps you can look 
us in the eye and tell us why you haven’t put a stop 
to all this long ago?” 

I gives him the grin. “Maybe I figured it was 
too husky a job for me to tackle,” says I. “Besides, 
I don’t just see how it’s up to me, anyway.” 

Auntie sniffs disapprovin’. “The age old ex- 
cuse,” says she. “ ‘Am I then, my brother’s 
keeper?’ Come, let us go. I shall bring this up at 
the next conference.” 

As for me, I was willin’. I didn’t feel that Auntie 
had quite made out a case against me, but I didn’t 
breathe real easy until they’d dropped me off at the 
Studio and I was safe upstairs with the door shut. 


8 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


And if Pinckney wanted to share Auntie again with 
anybody I hoped he’d pick on someone else. 

You’d thought he’d been satisfied with that, too. 
But it seems he had such a good time watchin’ me 
squirm under Aunt Julia’s glare that he had to dope 
out an encore. So here Sunday afternoon, as I’m 
putterin’ peaceful about the grounds out at Rock- 
hurst-on-the-Sound, who should show up but this 
same pair. It seems that in drivin’ through the vil- 
lage Auntie had discovered that we had the makings 
of a slum district, right at our elbows; that is, she’d 
seen our Dago settlement, down near the Nut & 
Bolt works, and I expect Pinckney had egged her 
on to tackle me again. 

“Surely, young man,” says she, “here are con- 
ditions of wretchedness which you might be doing 
something to alter. ’ ’ 

‘ i Oh, I don ’t know, ’ ’ says I. i ‘ Them Italians ain ’t 
so bad off. They get along pretty fair.” 

“Then you know very little about them,” says 
she. “Why, even with a passing glance I can tell 
what dull gray lives they must lead in those shabby, 
dirty tenements. Think of the hopeless, sodden 
monotony of their poverty-ridden existence. And 
you stand by, seeing it every day, without even lift- 
ing a finger to help.” 

“Not a finger!” says Pinckney solemn. “I’m 
surprised at you, Shorty.” 

“Well, for one thing,” says I, “I don’t know as 
I could tell just how to make a start. If I did, 
maybe I’d give it a try.” 

“Why,” says Auntie, “that is simple enough. 


SHORTY ON AN UPLIFT DEAL 


9 


You begin with one family group. You get to know 
them, gain their confidence, find out what is wrong 
with their wretched scheme of life, and help them 
to change it. That is the method. For example, I 
noticed a cobbler’s shop, with living rooms behind. 
There were numerous children about ” 

“Joe Sabretto ’s?” I asks. 

“It was some such name as that painted on the 
window, I think,” says Auntie. “Now why could 
you not begin with him?” 

“Eh?” says I, and I expect the way I was gawpin’ 
at her I must have looked more stupid than usual. 
“With — with Joe Sabretto?” 

1 ‘ Certainly, ’ ’ she snaps out crisp. ‘ ‘ Why not with 
one as well as another?” 

Having patience with people who stare at her with 
their mouths open ain’t one of Aunt Judia’s long 
suits I take it. And the look she gives me should 
have shriveled me up. I don’t know as I could say 
exactly what she raps out next, for I’m too busy 
smotherin’ a chuckle, but the idea of it all is that if 
I’m too simple in the head to crash in with a little 
uplift work on my own hook she supposes she’ll 
have to go along and show me how it’s done. That 
is, if I’m really in earnest and want to learn. 

“Sure thing!” says I. “Suppose we go right 
down now, eh?” 

And say, if I’d thought a year I couldn’t have 
sketched out anything that would have suited me 
much better. You see, I happen to know quite a lot 
about Joe Sabretto. No need goin’ into details, but 
he’s a cousin of Dominick’s, who’s been doing my 


10 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


outside work for five or six years; in fact, it was 
Joe wlio found Dominick for me. Also Joe has been 
patchin’ up the McCabe family shoes ever since he’s 
been in business, he’s been in on a few political cam- 
paigns that I’ve had a hand in, and — Well, we ain’t 
exactly strangers. So if I was goin’ to be shown 
how to give the scientific shunt to wretchedness and 
poverty acordin’ to the latest Northfield methods I 
didn’t mind startin’ with Joe. I knew he’d forgive 
me if my foot slipped or anything. 

I can’t deny that his establishment is kind of a 
messy place. It’s the middle store on the ground 
floor of an old wooden block with tenements in the 
back and on the three upper floors. Joe’s idea of 
an artistic window display is to plant his greasy old 
stitchin’ machine as near the front as he can get 
it and then pile his unfinished repair work around it. 
Yes, there usually is a sickly geranium plant that one 
of the girls has brought home from school and any 
vivid show posters that Joe can get hold of. 

Half way back a red and yellow cotton print 
strung on wires curtains off the shop from the place 
where the younger kids are stowed away at night in 
bunks. Behind that is another bedroom, and then 
in the rear, openin’ on a cluttered backyard, is the 
combined kitchen and dinin’ room. It’s all handy 
and convenient. Joe can sit out front at his bench 
and chat away with Mrs. Sabretto in the kitchen. 
He’s never late for meals, and all he has to do to 
guess what he’s going to get is to take a sniff. So 
the fried onions or the cabbage soup never surprise 
him. And he ain’t likely to miss any of the cute 


SHORTY ON AN UPLIFT DEAL 


11 


sayings of the kids, either. Generally he has two or 
three sprawlin’ around at his feet while he’s at 
work. Might bother some folks, but not an Italian. 
They sure are strong for the youngsters; and the 
more they have around, and the dirtier they are, the 
fonder they seem to be of ’em. Anyway, that’s the 
way I’ve found Joe. 

And this being Sunday when we breezes in on him, 
Aunt Julia and me, course he has nothing else to 
do but indulge his weakness. As we rolls up in the 
car Joe is discovered sitting just outside the shop 
door with the newest baby in his lap, a two-year-old, 
balanced on one knee, and a couple more children 
draped around him somehow. The oldest can’t be 
over six, and they all seem to be cut from one pat- 
tern — with black curly hair, bright brown eyes, and 
stout, chubby legs. Joe is smoking his pipe, he has 
arrayed himself in a pink and green shirt with a 
wall-paper pattern, and he seems calm and con- 
tented. 

Course, the minute he spots me he shows a double 
row of white teeth and starts to give me the friendly 
hail, but I blocks him off the best I can. 

“Is this Joe Sabretto, the shoemaker?” says I. 

“Sure t’ing,” says he, still grinnin’. 

‘ ‘ Then listen, ’ ’ says I. ‘ ‘ Here is a kind, good lady 
who has come to help you in your troubles.” 

“ Wottell?” says Joe, starin’ from one to the other 
of us. 

“What does he say?” asks Auntie. 

“That was Dago for ‘Much obliged,’ I guess,” 
says I. “Now I expect I’d better explain that ” 


12 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


“ No,” says Aunt Julia. “I will talk to him. My 
good man, how many children have yon?” 

“Me?” says Joe. “If you count leetle Guiseppe, 
w’at taka da sleep here, and big Rosie, who goes 
with her gran’-moter, I got seex. Ha scarlet feve, 
he get one, an’ da pneumon’ one more.” 

‘ ‘ Six living ! ’ ’ says Auntie. ‘ ‘ Altogether too many 
for a young man of your years and in such circum- 
stances. Too many by far. You cannot provide 
adequately for six, I am sure. I presume that most 
of the time they go hungry?” 

“Yes, all time hoongry,” admits Joe, stoopin’ to 
pat one of the youngsters on his fat tummy. ‘ ‘ See ? 
Eat lak leetle peegs.” 

“No wonder you are obliged to live in such 
wretched quarters as this, then,” says Auntie, sniff- 
ing in at the front door. “I suppose they are fear- 
fully unhygienic. I must inspect them. Come, my 
man, show me through . 9 9 

Joe looks at me inquirin’, for it aint strictly polite 
to brush past that red and yellow curtain unless 
you’re invited. I tips him the wink, though, and 
after untanglin’ himself from three of the kids, he 
proceeds to lead the way. Auntie takes one look 
at the sleepin ’ bunks, gasps with horror, and hurries 
on. In the kitchen we finds Mrs. Sabre tto, who’s 
rather a stunnin’ looker when she’s dressed up, busy 
around the stove, where she appears to have all 
kinds of stuff cookin’. She don’t look any too 
pleased, either, at havin’ visitors towed in. 

“Humph!” says Aunt Julia, chokin’ as she gets 
a lungful of garlic perfume. “What vile smelling 


SHORTY ON AN UPLIFT DEAL 


13 


food! How yon can avoid ptomaine poisoning I 
can ’t conceive. But what is the meaning of all this ? 
Do you run a boarding house, my good woman?” 

She’s pointing to the backyard, where the dining 
table, stretched to it’s full length, is set with 
eighteen or twenty places. Mrs. Sabretto don’t 
answer. She just gives her a flash from them brown 
eyes of hers. So I nudges Joe. 

“A leetle party,” explains Joe. “My brudder 
Guiseppe get turn loose from de army las’ mont’ an’ 
now he’s get engage, with a nica, girl. Some frien’s 
come tonight. We have beeg dinner. Sing song 
after. Fina time.” 

“What reckless improvidence!” says Auntie. 
“Here you are, poor as you can be, and yet you are 
ready to spend your last penny in silly entertaining. 
And perhaps next week your landlord will be putting 
you out on the street for not paying your rent.” 

“How about that, Joe?” says I. “What you 
gonna tell the landlord?” 

“Tell him chase himself, eh?” chuckles Joe. “But 
I t’ink he no bodder me.” 

“What can the man mean?” demands Aunt Julia. 

“ ’Fess up, Joe,” says I. “You own this whole 
block, don’t you?” 

Joe nods, grinnin’. “You know, Meest McCabe, 
You lenda me da mon w’en I make buy on da morge. 
I show you da pape w’en I pay heem off, too. An’ 
now I got all da rent cornin’ in every mont’. Yes?” 

“Correct,” says I. “But you lead a dull, gray 
life, don’t you, Joe; full of soggy anatomy and — 
and all that sort of stuff?” 


14 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


“Wottell?” says Joe, droppin’ back into his 
musical native tongue. 

“I mean you’re having a poor time of it,” I ex- 
plains, 4 ‘ with all these kids saddled on you, and no 
tiled shower hath in your bedroom, and a lot of un- 
refined people livin’ all around you. Why, I expect 
not a single member of your family reads the Atlan- 
tic Monthly reg’lar, or has ever been Who’s-Who- 
verized? That’s what we’re here for, Joe, to have 
you sketch out all the pathetic points of your 
wretched existence so we can tell you just how to 
live a better, happier life. Now let’s have the worst 
of it.” 

Joe stares at me blank and scratches his head. 
4 ‘You maka da fun, eh, Profess?” he asks. 

“Hoes that listen like joke stuff?” says I. “Go 
on, Joe, tell the kind lady what troubles you most. 
Is it not kn owin’ how many calories you sop up with 
a plate of macaroni, or is it havin’ so many children 
to bother with?” 

He seems to get that last. “Oh!” says he. “Ha 
kids! Fine, eh? Rosie, she go by da High-up 
School nex’ year. She learna lot t’ings — reada da 
story pape, play a da pian’, dance da shimmy. Lit- 
tle Salvatore, he smart, too printa da ‘No Trust’ 

sign for shop, shoota da craps, driva da fliw lak 
Billy dam. An’ da bambino all time mak’ us 
laugh.” 

“Well, maybe so,” says I. “Shows your crude 
taste. But what about all these low-brow neighbors 
of yours? Hon’t they get on your nerves?” 

“You mean da peop in da block?” says Joe. 


SHORTY ON AN UPLIFT DEAL 


15 


“Nice peop. Yes. Most of ’em good frien’s — Gen- 
oese, lak us. Maka plenty mon, paya da rent every 
Sat ’day night. One is uncle to me; plenty cousins, 
too. Somebody seek, he has lotta frien’s. Somebody 
losa da job, no get hoongry. Somebody have birth- 
day, or name bambino, or get married, then we have 
big party. You come tonight, you see.” 

I turns to Aunt Julia and shrugs my shoulders. 
“Sorry,” says I, “but it looks like you’d picked out 
a hopeless case. Joe insists on being disgustingly 
happy in spite of his wretched condition. What’s 
to be done about it ? ” 

And for once in her life Aunt Julia is stumped. 
“I — I don’t believe I know,” says she. 

Just about then, though, Mrs. Sabretto starts in 
unloadin’ a few remarks that she seems to have been 
storin’ up. They’re in Italian, but they listen sort 
of peppy and interestin’. 

“What does she say, Joe?” I asks curious. 

Joe, he kind of tints up and shakes his head. 

“Perhaps,” puts in Aunt Julia, “the woman has 
a different viewpoint. I should like to hear what 
it is?” 

“Come on, Joe, give it to us,”I urges. 

“She lak to know,” says Joe, “if kinda lady have 
beeg fam’ly, too?” 

“Why,” says Aunt Julia, “tell her that I have 
a son and a daughter, both grown up.” 

Joe has another brief dialogue with the wife. 
“She say,” goes on Joe, “do they lak you mooch, 
an’ do you lak them?” 

Say, at that I has to turn my head to hide the 


16 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


grin. For Mrs. Sabretto has sure put her finger 
on the weak spot. Course, I’d heard from Pinck- 
ney all about how Aunt Julia’s Robert had disgraced 
the family by marryin’ a quick-lunch waitress durin’ 
his junior year and had never been forgiven. Also 
how daughter Mildred had disagreed with Mother 
about the cigarette habit she’d accumulated at art 
school and had cut loose from home when she was 
twenty to settle down permanent in Greenwich Vil- 
lage and draw zippy pictures for magazine covers. 
No, you couldn’t exactly say that Aunt Julia was 
popular with her immediate fam’ly. Nor you 
couldn’t explain why to such crude folks as the 
Sabrettos. Anyway, Aunt Julia wasn’t trying. 

“I fail to see,” says she frosty, “why my affairs 
have anything to do with the case. I regard the 
woman’s question as highly impertinent.” 

“And I shouldn’t wonder,” says I, “but what 
Mrs. Sabretto feels about the same. So suppose we 
call it a day?” 

Which we did. It wasn’t a chatty ride we had back. 
Aunt Julia seems to have gone stale or something 
on the social uplift proposition, and she hasn’t a 
word more to offer. But you might know Pinckney 
would make some careless break or other when we 
got back. 

“Well,” says he, beamin’ cheerful, “did you two 
find some gloom sodden ones and administer a dose 
of sunshine?” 

“Nope,” says I. “They seemed to be particular 
about the brand.” 

And Pinckney had the poor taste to snicker. 


II 


SHORTY AND THE FISHHOUND 

W E’D just picked up the Nick Royces at the 
station and had dropped ’em at their cute 
little stucco bungalow on the Post Road — 
the one with the copper green shutters and all the 
window boxes. They’re our newly-wed neighbors, 
you know, who are startin’ their career of married 
bliss with eight-cylinder tastes and a flivver income. 
Up to date they haven’t even acquired a flivver, so 
whenever we get the chance we decoy ’em in with 
us for a ride. 

You would if you knew Nick Royce — or Phyllis. 
They’re that kind. Don’t make ’em any nicer. 
Nick, he’s one of these big, blue-eyed, pink-cheeked 
young husks with a smile like sunny days. And 
Phyllis — well, she always reminds me of a long- 
stemmed English violet, just picked, with the dew 
still on. You know? Some couple, I’ll say. 

So I don’t quite get what Mrs. McCabe is drivin’ 
at when she lets loose a sigh, after we’ve rolled on, 
and remarks mournful : ‘ 1 Isn ’t it a shame, Shorty ? ’ ’ 
“Eh?” says I, makin’ the turn into the shore 
road, and then glancin’ at her puzzled. 

“The way he treats Phyllis,” she goes on. 

17 


18 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


“You mean not buyin’ her a chummy roadster 
and lettin’ her struggle along with only one maid?” 
says I. 

“Stupid!” says Sadie. “Of course not. I don’t 
suppose he told you what he was going to do next ? ’ ’ 

“I don’t remember his makin’ any awful threat,” 
says I. “What is it?” 

“He’s going to take her on another fishing trip,” 
says Sadie. 

I expect I chuckled some at that. The female 
mind can take some curious quirks, can’t it? “Oh, 
well,” says I, “that’s Nick’s failin’, you know, this 
fisliin’ bug of his.” 

“I only wish I had known of it in time,” says 
Sadie, settin’ her chin firm. 

You see, she’d had a good deal to do, first and 
last, with makin’ the match. Not that it needed 
much engineerin’, once Nick got a good look at 
Phyllis, but the preliminaries was Sadie’s. It was 
a case of Phyllis visiting at the Purdy-Pells and this 
young Mr. Royce being dragged out to fill in at one' 
of Mrs. Boomer Day’s week-end affairs. Course, 
Sadie knew that Phyllis was as good as engaged 
to a man back in her home town, down in Virginia. 
But Sadie ’d heard how he was nearly ten years 
older than Phyllis and had a bald spot, and ran a 
general store in some dinky country town. So she 
decided, sight unseen, that he wouldn’t do at all. 
Likewise she picks on Nick Royce as a good sub- 
stitute. 

Her next move is to have Phyllis and Nick meet 
at a couple of dances, and before she knew the affair 


SHORTY AND THE FISHHOUND 19 


had started it was well under way. Then I’m de- 
tailed to size up Nick and see if he ’s as good as he 
looks. I reports favorable. He comes from Rut- 
land, Vermont; his mother’s a widow who is fairly 
well fixed, havin’ been left a half interest in a 
marble quarry; Nick has been out of college three 
years, havin’ put in six or eight months with the 
Yankee Division, and now he has a job in Boomer 
Day’s office. I didn’t quite get the details of just 
what part of the bond business Nick was strugglin’ 
with, hut I gathers that he’s doing well at it. 

Still, them Virginia folks of Phyllis’s sure raised 
some grand ructions when she went hack and told 
’em how she meant to give Baldy the sudden shunt 
in favor of an unknown who most likely had the pie- 
breakfastin’ habit and was kind of vague as to who 
his great-grandfather was. And it wasn’t until I’d 
had Nick dig up the fact that two of his ancestors 
helped old Ethan Allen spring that Ticonderoga 
surprise party, and that one of his great uncles 
had been a candidate for governor on the Democratic 
ticket, that they was calmed down. 

We didn’t mention that the great uncle was 
snowed under at the election, or that one of the 
Ticonderoga heroes survived to become a tin-peddler 
and broke his neck failin’ out of his cart because 
he’d hoisted in too much hard cider. What was the 
use? When we produced a picture post card of a 
soldiers’ monument with the names of Ephraim and 
Joshua Royce showin’ plain under the date 1776, we 
had them Virginia objectors eat in’ out of our hand. 

So they’d been married and was now supposed to 


20 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


be livin’ happy ever after. I couldn’t see but what 
they was, too. But Sadie thinks different. This 
fishin’ nonsense had gone about far enough. Phyllis 
couldn’t stand it. Anyone could see that. She was 
too frail and delicate for such rough jaunts into the 
wilds. It had been bad enough when Nick had taken 
her off on their honeymoon trip up into the woods 
of Maine; where they knocked around for three 
weeks in fishing camps, canoeing up rivers with 
awful-sounding names, being barked at by wild 
moose, associating with whiskered guides who sub- 
sisted mainly on eating tobacco and who gave them 
flap-jacks every morning for breakfast. Phyllis, 
who had been brought up in a drawing room and on 
the front veranda, and who considered tatting an 
out-door sport! 

“The wonder is,” says Sadie, “that she stood it 
as well as she did. And now that Nick has a vaca- 
tion he’s planning to take her off on another wild 
trip like that. Shorty, you’ll just have to talk to 
him, that’s all.” 

‘ 4 Eh I ’ ’ says I. i 1 Me crash in and point out chatty 
what a brute he is? No, thanks. I can think of 
enough ways of being unpopular without tryin’ 
that.” 

“But I haven’t said that Nick means to be cruel 
or brutal, ’ ’ says Sadie. 4 1 Of course he doesn ’t. He ’s 
just thoughtless. Being so big and strong himself 
he doesn’t realize what he’s asking Phyllis to go 
through on these excursions. If someone would 
only suggest this to him no doubt he would see the 


SHORTY AND THE FISHHOUND 21 


point at once. And who has a better right than we 
have, Shorty? In fact, it’s really our duty.” 

“Say, anybody ’d think, to hear you go on,” says 
I, “that we’d adopted that pair and was bringin , 
’em up by hand. No, I won’t promise a thing, but 
maybe I’ll run down after dinner and let Nick give 
me the straight dope on his plans. I may give him 
a hunch and I may not.” 

There’s no mistake about his being a reg’lar fish- 
hound, all right. You wouldn’t suspect it to look 
at him, either, for he’s kind of a finicky dresser as* 
a rule and seldom indulges in sporty talk. But you 
never can tell. I expect Nick was born with it in 
him. They hadn’t been livin’ out here a fortnight 
before he begun askin’ me where the nearest trout 
streams was, if there wasn’t black bass in that pond 
over back of the country club, and if I’d ever tried 
for flounders off my sea-wall. 

Course I couldn’t give him any information. 
Fishin’ ain’t in my line, never has been. Not that 
I ain’t tried, off and on. That’s something you can’t 
very well escape. Why, even these Harlemites, born 
and bred in a five-room flat, and who think they’re 
getting close to Nature when they sit in the bleach- 
ers to see a ball game, they get run in on the fishin’ 
game. You’ll see ’em by the hundreds Sunday 
momin’s boardin’ these fishin’ steamers for a trip 
out to the Banks, or up at Pelham Bay paddlin’ out 
in skiffs after eels or what not. And once they get 
the habit that’s mostly what they live for. 

But it never got to be chronic with me. Maybe 
because I’ve had such poor luck. I’ve been out, too, 


22 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY MoCABE 


with reg’lar guys, who knew all the different kinds 
of fish by their first names, could tell you their 
habits and tastes and whims ; whether they laid their 
eggs in nests, or hatched ’em out in incubators, and 
so on. I’ve splashed through trout brooks with 
these experts and come home with nothing but wet 
feet and a collection of mosquito bites. I’ve sat 
out in a boat on a lake all day, and fished for bass 
right where they told me I couldn’t help catchin’ 
’em. And I’ve never failed to jinx any excursion 
of the kind I ever went on. Maybe the fish don’t 
like my face, or my breath ain’t perfumed right. 
Anyway, the minute I drop a hook overboard they 
go right from there and don’t come back until next 
day, if ever. 

What I never could quite figure out, either, is the 
sense of this fool idea that you got to get up before 
daylight if you want to catch fish. Who unloaded 
that notion first? And what’s it based on? They 
try to tell me that fish are hungriest when they first 
wake up. How do they know fish sleep at night, 
same as we do? Who’s watched ’em at it? But 
suppose it’s a fact. Don’t they eat but once a day? 
And if they do, why not arrive about lunch time ; or 
even as late as their dinner hour? If I knew as 
much about fish habits as some of these birds let on 
to I wouldn’t waste all that time between meals, 
when likely as not the fish are loafin’ around 
laughin’ at ’em, or maybe playin’ blind-man’s-buff, 
or holdin’ peace conventions, or indulgin’ in their 
favorite water sports. 

Whenever I’ve put any of these puzzles up to Nick 


SHORTY AND THE FISHHOUND 23 


he's just laughed and shook his head. No, he didn’t 
claim to know all about fish. Oh, he’d picked up a 
little here and there. About the only thing he was 
dead sure of was that he liked to fish. Never seemed 
to worry him much whether he got any or not. Just 
so long as he had a day when he could roll out about 
4 A. M., hike off a few miles to where there was some 
sort of water, and fool around with his rod and reel 
until near dark, he was satisfied. Sounds foolish 
enough to me, hut I can’t see no great harm in it. 
If you can do that sort of thing and like it, then I 
expect it’s a form of sport. 

But when you go so far as to inflict it on the rest 
of the fam’ly, ’specially a little wife that’s never 
worn anything hut high-heeled slippers and has 
always been careful of her complexion — well, that’s 
something else again. Maybe I should drop a hint 
to Nick. 

I finds him unwrappin’ a lot of packages and boxes 
and spreadin’ what’s in ’em on the livin’ room 
table. And I never knew before what a complicated 
outfit you could collect just to go after a few fish. 
First off, there was a set of jointed rods ; three of 
’em, new and shiny and slick lookin’; with reels to 
go with ’em. 

‘ i Well, well ! ’ ’ says I. ‘ ‘ Looks like you meant bus- 
iness, this time. Goin’ to hold one in each hand 
and another between your teeth, eh?” 

Nick explains that one is for fly castin’, another 
for still fishin’, and the third for trollin’. But say, 
when I glances at the price tags on some of ’em I 
has to gasp. Take it from me, they don’t give those 


24 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


things away. Why, one cost as much as I pay for 
a new automobile casing. 

Then there was other tackle ; silk lines of different 
sizes, and more kinds of bait than I ever knew ex- 
isted; weird lookin’ things made out of red flannel 
and feathers; nickel plated spinners and spoons, 
with little hooks all over ’em; artificial minnows, 
painted up natural as life and then some pickled 
minnows in glass jars; rubber water bugs, and I 
don’t know what else. 

“You sure mean to feed ’em fancy,” says I. 
“Must have near $25 worth of bait here.” 

“I suppose so,” admits Nick. “One must have 
the right kind, though, and they tell me all these 
things have about doubled in price recently.” 

“The high cost of fishin’, eh?” says I. 

“Behold,” says Phyllis, pretendin’ to pout, “my 
new evening dress!” And she points to the col- 
lection. 

“But just think of the four-pound bass we’re 
going to land,” says Nick. 

“Suppose you don’t get any, after all?” says I. 

“Oh, I’ll get ’em,” says he, waggin’ his head 
confident. 

“How about you?” I asked Phyllis. “You goin’ 
after ’em, too?” 

“No,” says Phyllis. “I shall try to keep the 
canoe from upsetting, or stay in the camp and rest. 
Nick does all the fishing, you know.” 

She don’t say it complainin’, you understand, but 
gazes admirin’ at Nick all the while. And he never 
seems to get the idea at all that there’s anything 


SHORTY AND THE FISHHOUND 25 

selfish about the proposition. So I gives him 
another jab. 

4 ‘On your way back,” says I, “I expect you’ll be 
taking a run down into Virginia to let Phyllis see 
the folks?” 

“Not this year,” says Nick. “Can’t afford it.” 

And how you going to get at an ego that’s so 
covered with fish scales? I give it up. If Phyllis 
didn’t have spunk enough to stand up for her rights, 
then she’d have to worry along the best way she 
could. Still, I was kind of sorry for her. 

Then I meets this old friend of mine, Brick Hart- 
ley, who is the ex-boss of the county and a party 
who’s wise in the head on a lot of subjects. Some- 
how he mentions this young Mr. Royce, saying what 
a fine chap he seems to be, and I tells him about 
this secret fishin’ vice of his and what a raw deal 
the little wife is gettin’ out of it. 

‘ ‘ Huh ! ’ ’ grunts Brick. ‘ ‘ Thinks he ’s a fisherman, 
does he? Like to cure him of that, would you?” 

“Can’t be done,” says I. “That’s the worst of 
the disease.” 

“Can’t, eh?” says Brick. “Then I guess we’ll 
have to run him up against old Doc. Denicker.” 

With that he proceeds to sketch out the plot of 
the piece. I’d seen this Doc. Denicker person driftin’ 
around the village on and off, but about all I knew 
of him was that he couldn’t be classed as one of 
the ornamental citizens of Rockhurst-on-the-Sound. 
He’s a greasy, whiskered, heavy-paunched old 
pirate, with a couple of bad eyes peerin’ out from 
under the bushiest eyebrows you ever saw. Seems 


26 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


he’d drifted down from somewhere up in Connecti- 
cut years ago and had worked up kind of a reputa- 
tion among the mill-hands as an herb doctor. He 
lived in a little shack four or five miles out and every 
Fall he used to go around takin’ orders for what he 
called his Juniper Bark Stomach Bitters. 

Accordin’ to Brick, the stuff he sold was chiefly 
poor whiskey, flavored up with various roots and 
things, and finally the Sheriff caught him at it and 
had him sent up for six months. Since then he’d 
operated very cautious, if he hadn ’t quit altogether, 
and had given out that he was fishin’ for a livin’. 

“Now there’s a pond up back there,” says Brick, 
“that’s just full of pickerel and other fish. Nobody 
knew it until Doc. Denicker begun bringin’ ’em out 
and peddlin’ ’em ’round. People have fished holes 
in that pond and never caught a thing. But Den- 
icker can bring out a dozen pickerel any time he 
likes. Somehow, he has the knack. When is your 
friend Royce plannin’ to start on this expedition 
of his?” 

“In about ten days,” says I. 

“Then there’s time for him to meet Doc. Den- 
icker first,” says Brick. “After that he may feel 
different about going so far to try his luck.” 

Well, we framed it up. Brick Hartley agreed to 
have Denicker on the job the followin’ Sunday, and 
all I had to do was to pass the word confidential to 
Nick about how I’d heard of this pond that was just 
seethin’ with big pickerel achin’ to be caught. 
Course, Nick fell for it. 

“By George!” says he. “That will give me a 


SHORTY AND THE FISHHOUND 27 


chance to try out some of my new tackle. How would 
you like to go along, Shorty ?” 

4 ‘Well, if you ’ll show me how it’s done, ,, says I, 
“maybe I will.” 

Yes, we went. Nick was bustin’ with enthusiasm. 
Just the right kind of a day for pickerel fishin’, he 
declares, it being cloudy and still. And he’s invested 
$5 in a dozen frog legs, besides buyin’ some more 
kinds of spinners and things. Also, when we gets 
to the pond, he allows that them patches of lily 
pads and eel grass must be just thick with pickerel. 

I must say, too, that he goes at it scientific. The 
way he could throw that bait out and skitter it along 
on the top was worth watchin’. You’d think if there 
was fish there they’d just naturally climb out and 
grab hold. Somehow, though, they didn’t. For two 
hours or more he thrashes around on the edge of 
the lily pads, first in one place and then in another, 
without gettin’ so much as a nibble. It begun to 
drizzle, too, which, Nick says, is exactly the kind 
of weather for pickerel fishin’. Still he has no 
luck. As for me, I’d quit after the first half hour 
and was rowin’ the boat around and tryin’ to keep 
dry. 

“Ain’t that another party down in that cove?” 
says I. 

“You’re right,” says Nick. “And I believe he’s 
— Oh, I say! Did you see the whopper he pulled 
in then?” 

“Why,” says I, “that must be old Doc. Denicker. 
Suppose we edge down that way.” 

Which we did. We edged nearer and nearer, 


28 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


although Nick says it ain’t strictly etiquette. But 
our poor luck holds, and every once in a while Den- 
icker would haul out another big one. Nick passes 
out to me all the alibis he has in stock, he changes 
his bait, and he skitters as skillful as he knows how. 
But nothing happens in the way of fish. 

“I thought you was a fisherman, Nick?” says I. 

* ‘ Hang it all!” says he; “I thought so, too. He 
must have the only good spot in the lake.” 

‘ ‘We’ll fix that,” says I. 

With that I hails Doc. Denicker, displays the 
pocket flask I’d brought on purpose, and inside of 
three minutes we’d established friendly relations. 

“It’s this way,” explains the Doc., wipin’ his 
mouth careful and handin’ back what was left in the 
flask, which ain’t enough to give a flea an eye wash. 
“You don’t want to use none of them limber poles 
like you got there. Nor no fancy reel. What you 
need for pickerel is a stiff bamboo. Then you put 
the butt of it again your belly, like this, drop your 
bait clear to th’ bottom, and start wigglin’. So.” 

And say, I’ll be hanged if he don’t pull a two- 
foot pickerel right from under our boat. Maybe 
Nick don’t look simple, too. He watches Denicker 
careful, though, and says perhaps he can get the 
same effect with his jointed rod. But he don’t. No 
matter how he wiggles the bait up from the bottom, 
nothing comes with it. And Doc. Denicker continues 
to hoist out big pickerel from all around us. Every 
time he does it, too, he cocks one of them bad eyes 
at Nick and leers gloatin’. Nick, he gets red clear 
back of the ears. Finally he announces that he’s 


SHORTY AND THE FISHHOUND 29 


had enough for the day, and we rows hack to where 
we’d left the car, with not even a hornpout to show 
for our day’s sport. 

“I believe there must he something in Denicker’s 
theory about using a stiff bamboo pole,” says he. 

“And I expect, then, you got to be built proper,” 
says I. “You need a meat-safe like his to rest the 
butt against. Even with that, it looks like there’s 
quite a trick to catchin’ pickerel.” 

“Trick!’ says he. “I assure you, Shorty, it’s an 
art.” 

I hardly got another word out of him all the way 
home. He seems to be thinkin’ hard and deep. I let 
him chew over it, wonderin ’ whether he ’d come right 
out and admit he was mistaken about being enough 
of a fisherman to warrant anything better than a 
witchhazel pole with the bark on, or if he’d keep it 
to himself. 

Anyway, I was lookin’ for him to change that trip 
to the Maine woods into a tour through the White 
Mountains, or maybe a week at Atlantic City. So a 
few days later I drops around again, sort of casual. 
Phyllis says he’s out in the back yard. He is. I 
finds him standing on the stone wall, the end of a 
bamboo pole against his belt, and the hook and line 
dropped into the next lot. 

“Well, how are the field mice bitin’ today, Nick?” 
I asks. 

And he sure does look foolish when he sees me 
grinnin’ at him. 

“I suppose you can guess what I’m doing, 
Shorty?” says he. 


30 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 

“I expect you’re practicin’ the Doc. Denicker 
wiggle, eh?” says I. 

“ You bet!” says he. “And if I can get it I mean 
to put over a new one on some of those Maine 
guides.” 

“Oh ho!” says I. “I didn’t know hut you’d de- 
cided you wasn’t a fisherman, after alL” 

“A fisherman,” says Nick, “is one who fishes 
and has faith, whether he catches anything or not.” 

“Then I guess you’re qualified,” says I. 

So Phyllis is dragged off into the wilds again. 
The Royces was gone a couple of weeks and durin’ 
that time Sadie spills more or less words of sym- 
pathy for the dainty little wife. 

“Just think!” says she. “Way off there in the 
woods, with probably not another woman within 
miles, and nothing to do but fight black flies and 
mosquitoes and sit around some rough camp! I 
should think she would be bored to death, and if 
she doesn’t get pneumonia or something dreadful 
it will be a wonder. ’ ’ 

I’ll admit that them was about my sentiments, 
too. And then here last night they came breezin’ 
in on us; Nick looking huskier than ever, and 
Phyllis all tanned up, with the pink showin’ in her 
cheeks and her eyes sparklin’. 

“Just look!” says she, producin’ a birch-bark 
basket and openin’ it to let loose a loud smell of 
arsenic and other perfumes. “A five-pound black 
bass that I caught and landed all by myself! Isn’t 
he a beauty? And we are going to have him mounted 


SHORTY AND THE FISHHOUND 31 


to hang over the living room fireplace. Oh, but we 
did have the best time up there ! ’ ’ 

Sadie glances at me and shrugs her shoulders, 
and I answers by hunchin’ mine. Then we admires 
the fish until Phyllis is willin’ I should put it out 
on the side porch while they goes on with the 
thrillin’ details of the excursion. And after they’re 
gone we burns a few joss sticks, with all the doors 
and windows open. Neither of us seems to care 
for the society of a black bass that is due to be a 
wall decoration some day, but ain’t quite arrived 
at that state. 

“Who would have thought,” says Sadie, “that 
Phyllis, of all girls, would take to that sort of 
thing?” 

“Oh, well!” says I. “I expect she’s right. If 
you can’t reform ’em you might as well join in. 
And after all, Nick ain’t so bad. Course, I don’t 
accuse him of havin’ the seven deadly virtues, but 
he’s rather a decent young chap. He might do worse 
than fish.” 


m 


HOW THEY GET THAT WAY 

S AY, Shorty,” remarks Swifty Joe as I drifts 
back to the Physical Culture Studio after lunch 
here the other day, “that Bristow party called 
up again.” 

“Yes?” says I. “Told him I couldn’t take him 
on until tomorrow at 3.30, didn’t you?” 

“Nlah,” says Swifty, using the port side of his 
face. “Tried to. But say, he’s one of those birds 
you can’t tell anything. Says how he’ll be here at 
2.15 today and to reserve the rest of the afternoon 
for him. Then he hangs up.” 

‘ ‘ Just like that, eh ? ” says I. 1 ‘ How interestin ’ ! ” 
“Who is he, anyway?” asks Swifty. “Talks like 
one of these here new kinks. ’ ’ 

“That’s what he is, Swifty — a king,” says I. 
“Ah, wotcha feedin’ us!” protests Swifty. 
“They’re gettin’ a little scarce abroad,” says I, 
“but here in the good old United States we got a 
bumper crop. We’ve got kings bowcoop, as the 
Buddies used to say. Kings is what we’re long on. 
And most of us are proud of it.” 

Swifty gawps at me for a second, rubs his cauli- 
flower ear as a sign that he’s lost the trail, and then 
demands : 4 ‘ Whaddye mean, kinks ? ’ ’ 

32 


HOW THEY GET THAT WAY 


33 


“Heard of John D., the oil king, haven’t you?” 
says I. “And Mr. Schwab, the steel king? Well, 
they’re only our headliners. We got lots more. 
There’s Henry, of Detroit — he’s our flivver king. 
Then we got pickle kings, and bath-tub kings, and 
chewing-gum kings, and coal kings, and beef kings, 
and safety razor kings, and breakfast food kings, 
and as many more as there are ad. pages in the 
magazines. ’ ’ 

“Ah, them kind!” says Swifty. “They don’t 
bother me none.” 

“Maybe not,” says I; “but you give up to ’em 
reg’lar, old son; that is, unless you’ve quit eatin’ 
food, and wearin’ clothes, and buyin’ things for the 
flat. No dodgin’ their tax collectors. We all pay 
our share, and because there’s so many of us that 
do is why they’re kings.” 

Swifty shrugs his shoulders careless. That’s a 
bit too deep for him, so he simply lets it slide off. 
“This Bristow party,” says he, “what kind is he?” 

“About a third rater,” says I. “He’s our paper- 
box king. You don’t hear so much about him per- 
haps, but I happen to know that in his line he’s a 
top-notcher. Anything in pasteboard, from egg 
containers to the box you lug home your new Klassy 
Kut suit in, most likely comes from one of his fac- 
tories. And he runs a chain of pulp mills from the 
Allegash to Chinook Falls, with enough hands in 
’em to outvote any two Tammany districts ,you 
could name. Yes, he’s some guy, Thomas D. 
Bristow.” 

Swifty gets that, all right. In fact, he’s im- 


34 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 

pressed. He stares at me dazed. “Wot ’ll I do 
then,” says he, “when he shows up at 2.15?” 

“Why,” says I, “give him a chair and let him 
wait. Give him two chairs if he ain’t satisfied, or 
whittle out a crown for him. Do anything you 
think ought to be done for a paper-box king.” 

“Ahr-rr chee!” growls Swifty, registerin’ 
disgust. 

He don’t believe in talking that way about our 
truly great men, Swifty. He’s got a reverent mind 
and a loyal soul. Every man accordin’ to his bank 
account, is Swifty ’s motto, and I expect there’s a 
lot of others who hold the same. I don’t know as I 
always get away from it myself. 

But this happens to be one of my busy days. 
Inside of ten minutes I’m in the gym, workin’ away 
with one of my old reg’lars who has gouty finger 
joints and a 46 waist measure, but who’s willin’ to 
keep pluggin’ away at the apparatus and cut down 
on the red meats until I get him back in shape. 
Kind of interestin’, too, taking these old boys with 
excess blood pressure, Wall Street livers, peevish 
digestions and so on, and sweatin’ the rubbish out 
of ’em and gettin’ ’em to breathe below the third 
rib. Maybe not so thrillin’ as hammerin’ some ambi- 
tious comer through the ropes for the big end of 
the gate receipts, but I reckon it’s a lot more use- 
ful. And in the long run it pays better. I don’t 
get my picture on the sportin’ page so often as I 
used to when I was wearin’ the belt, but I don’t 
have to live around in trainin’ camps or mix with 


HOW THEY GET THAT WAY 35 

a lot of tinhorn sports, either. And I’ll admit I 
like the job. 

So I’d got the old boy well lathered up and was 
givin’ him a ten minutes’ breathin’ spell, when 
Swifty sticks his head in the gym door and announces 
husky: 4 ‘Say, Shorty, he’s here.” 

“Eh?” says I, lookin’ blank at him. 

“That kink party — Mr. Bristow,” says he. 

“Oh, very well,” says I. “Lock the safe and tell 
him to make himself at home. I’ll be out in twenty 
minutes or so.” 

You know how you’ll frame up a picture of some- 
one you’ve never seen, just on their rep. What I 
was lookin’ for when I finally steps into the front 
office, was one of these potty old boys with a hand- 
hewed face and jutty eyebrows. And I expected 
he’d be pacin’ up and down chewin’ a black cigar 
stump and gettin red behind the ears. 

So I’m a little jarred when I discovers this busy 
group spread around my desk. In the swing chair, 
sort of holdin’ forth, as you might say, is this slim, 
stoop shouldered gent with the long face and the 
thin nose. It’s an odd face, a bit whopper-jawed 
on one side, deep lines about the mouth corners, and 
the weirdest pair of buttermilk-blue eyes I ever 
met. Camped in chairs just beyond are two slick- 
haired young fellows, one with a lapful of maga- 
zines and newspaper clippings, and the other with 
a notebook on his knee. Leanin’ up against the 
water cooler is Swifty Joe, gawpin’ fascinated. 

“Well,” says I, “reading from left to right, which 
is Mr. Bristow?” 


36 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


The long-faced party in the chair looks up, waves 
the young gent who’s readin’ something to stop, and 
remarks in a thin, wavery voice: 4 ‘I — er — I am 
Mr. Bristow. And have I the pleasure of meeting 
Professor McCabe ?” 

“If that’s your idea of pleasure,” says I, “you 
have. McCabe’s my name. I wasn’t lookin’ for 
you, though, until tomorrow. Maybe Swifty didn’t 
get it to you clear.” 

“Oh, yes,” says Bristow careless. “But today 
suited me better. You see, Professor, I had heard 
of you through some business acquaintances ; rather 
important men, by the way. They spoke highly of 
your methods. Yesterday I decided to take a course 
with you. I need it. We have been through rather 
a strenuous period of late, we leaders of industry, 
if I may so class myself. I’ve had my share, and it 
has left me not in the best condition. And on the 
fifteenth of next month I must go abroad as chair- 
man of the Commission to promote International 
Fellowship, which I have recently organized. So 
you see I have no more than three weeks to give 
you, my dear Professor.” 

He says it all easy and soothin’, them queer eyes 
wanderin’ around as he talks and his slim fingers 
lacin’ and unlacin’ restless. 

“It didn’t strike you I might be all dated up for 
today, eh?” says I. 

“If it did,” says he, “I failed to consider it. 
That can easily be arranged.” 

“Think so, do you?” says I. 

“Of course,” says he, “you may need to cancel 


HOW THEY GET THAT WAY 


37 


other engagements. I quite understand that this 
may he necessary. But, allow me to add, I am ac- 
customed to paying for what I want — liberally. I 
would suggest that we start in at once.” And he 
unlimbers himself from the chair. 

“ Don’t rush yourself,” says I. 1 ‘ Accor din’ to my 
schedule you don’t start in until 3:30 tomorrow, if 
you start at all. That don’t need any diagram, 
does it?” 

You’d think a crisp come-back like that would get 
him pinkin’ up behind the ears. But it don’t. He 
just springs a curious, sappy, crooked smile and 
flutters his hands at me like he was shooin’ a balky 
settin’ hen off the nest. 

“Merkins,” says he, “my check hook.” One of 
the slick-haired young gents passes it over prompt 
and unscrews a fountain pen. Business of fillin’ 
in. “There!” he goes on, passin’ over a baby blue 
slip. “That will be for the first week; afternoons, 
from 2 until 4:30.” 

I glances at the check casual. It’s for a round 
thousand, and I can hear Swifty, who’s rubberin’ 
over my shoulder, breathin’ hard. I’ll admit, too, 
that’s more’n I usually take in for fifteen hours’ 
work. But someway this T. D. Bristow person has 
stirred up the mulish streak in me. I chucks the 
slip back on the desk. 

“Listen, Mr. Man,” says I. “Some of these 
parties you’d like to have me scratch off without 
any notice are old reg’lars of mine, who have been 
coming here to the Studio for years, and are de- 


38 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


pendin’ on me to keep ’em in trim. Besides, most 
of ’em are personal friends.” 

“I beg pardon,” says be, a cold look flickerin’ 
into them buttermilk-blue eyes and the thin upper 
lip tightenin’ into a straight line. “Friends, did 
you say?” 

I nods. 

“If you will permit me,” says he. “They don’t 
exist.” 

“Eh?” says I, and I expect it left me with my 
mouth open. 

“Oh, it’s a persistent and popular fallacy, friend- 
ship,” says he; “but really, there is no such thing.” 

“Since when?” says I. 

“I suppose that condition has been going on since 
Adam,” says he, smilin’ sort of satisfied with him- 
self. “Merkins, take this. You see, my dear Pro- 
fessor, you merely confuse your ideas. One may 
have congenial acquaintances, as well as those who 
are uncongenial. One may have associates, amusing 
or otherwise. One may even have constant com- 
panions who are agreeable, likable, trustworthy in 
a degree, and more or less loyal. Those we value 
and cultivate. Or they may be irritating, deceitful, 
perhaps downright dishonest. That kind we endure 
because we don’t know just how to get rid of them. 
But friendship, in the sense it is usually used — that 
implies a personal altruism which simply does not 
exist. ’ ’ 

Having unloaded that, Mr. Bristow leans back in 
the desk chair and twiddles his lean fingers. He had 
me goin’, all right. I’d followed for a while, then 


HOW THEY GET THAT WAY 


39 


I got lost. Toward the last I was just scratchin’ my 
head and watchin’ Merkins scribble that fish-hook 
stuff on his pad. I could read one as well as I could 
understand the other. 

Course, I got the main idea. Bristow didn’t be- 
lieve in friends. 

“Then you’re out of luck, I’ll say,” says I. 

“Most persons seem to think I’ve been rather for- 
tunate,” says Bristow. And Merkins smothers a 
chuckle. 

While debatin’ things like that ain’t much in my 
line, and as a rule I’d be too busy, here I had half 
an hour before my next appointment and I didn’t 
feel like lettin’ him get away with any such chesty 
argument. 

“Mean to say, Mr. Bristow,” I goes on, “that you 
never in your life had anybody who stuck by you 
through rough and smooth, who helped you when 
you was down, and slapped you on the back when 
you made a winning — nobody you could call a 
friend?” 

“I think my experience has been the usual one,” 
says he. “There have been men who have been 
helpful to me at times ; and women, too. More have 
been merely useful. But I am quite certain that 
none of them, whether consciously or not, but ex- 
pected me at some time to become useful or helpful 
to them. That is human nature. We live first for 
ourselves. It is the underlying law of every living 
thing, from protoplasm to philanthropist. And 
when we talk of friends — well, we are simply fooling 
ourselves.” 


40 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


“You must have bumped up against a lot of hard 
boiled eggs in your time,” says I, “to feel that 
way about it. What’s your substitute for friends, 
anyway — secretaries?” and I jerks my thumb 
toward the slick-haired pair. 

“Hardly,” says Bristow. “I use my secretaries 
as brain extensions. Most successful men do. They 
must, unless they are content to be partial successes. 
For every man of large affairs should have wide 
interests. I find all sorts of knowledge useful to me, 
even in the making of paper boxes. I must keep 
up with events and ideas. But there are only so 
many hours in the day and I have but one brain. 
So I hire other brains, as I need them. At present 
I have six personal secretaries, aside from those in 
my business offices. Two are always with me. I may 
have a valuable thought which should not be lost. 
I may want something looked up. Then I must be 
informed as to the news of the day, and what the 
magazines are printing. I have poetry read to me 
at odd moments ; book reviews, art notes, dramatic 
criticisms. 

“My fads I take care of in a similar way. An 
active mentality is bound to have fads. They are 
the escape valves. But of course I cannot devote 
to them the time that they demand. So I hire ex- 
perts to look after my fads. Poppy raising is one. 
Perhaps you have seen the Tom Bristow double 
fringed scarlet poppy? No? Well, I have been 
awarded two first prizes for it, and I pay my head 
gardener three thousand a year. Collecting pencil 
studies is another of my fads. A bankrupt art dealer 


HOW THEY GET THAT WAY 


41 


gave me the idea; said it would be an original thing 
to do. So I hired him at a good salary and he makes 
a monthly report of the treasures he picks up for 
me. This summer he made a great find — two sketches 
of an old lady in a chair, by some chap by the name 
of Whistler. So you see, McCabe, if you can buy 
what you want, why delude yourself with the fiction 
of friendship ?” 

“Why, I guess I never thought much about it,” 
says I. “Might be worth lookin’ into, this idea of 
yours. I’ve always supposed, though, that a few 
of my friends was the real thing, and if I’ve been 
kiddin’ myself along ” 

“You surely have been, McCabe,” breaks in Bris- 
tow. “Just for example now, suppose you pick out 
one person whom you could call a real friend.” 

I don’t know why, but off-hand I looks around 
for Swifty Joe Gallagher. He ain’t in sight, though. 
I expect seein’ me turn down that big check was too 
much for him and he’s gone back into the gym and 
shut the door. But I names him, just the same. 

“Ah, yes!” says Bristow, smilin’. “Your paid 
assistant. What makes you think he is a true 
friend?” 

“Well,” says I, “he’s always gone through the 
motions, ever since I picked him off a park bench. 
One of my gang of rubbers, Swifty was, once. He’d 
started out to be a pug, himself, over in South 
Brooklyn. A handy boy he was with the mitts, too, 
and good on footwork. If it hadn’t been for a streak 
of yellow in him maybe he’d made good. But he 
couldn’t stand punishment; and at 25 he found him- 


42 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


self hangin’ around trainin’ camps, with no trade, 
no steady job and a hearty appetite. When I ran 
across him, about as I was startin’ the Studio, he 
was down and out. I took him on and he ain’t 
missed a meal since. He ain’t ever said much about 
being grateful. I doubt if he knows the word. But 
it’s there. I’ve never had much call to try him 
out, but I expect there ain’t anything I could ask 
Swifty Joe to do for me that he wouldn’t make a 
stab at.” 

Mr. Bristow shrugs his shoulders. “Try that on 
a stray dog and you’ll get results equally satisfac- 
tory,” says he. “A helper and a dependent cannot 
be a real friend.” 

“I’d bank strong on Swifty in a pinch,” says I. 

“It would be interesting to arrange a test,” says 
Bristow. “Merkins, can you suggest something?” 

Merkins can. He’s an ingenious young gent, and 
I suspect is a movie fan and maybe tried his hand 
at scenario writin’. After thinkin’ only a minute 
he sketches out a neat little plot. 

“Do you agree to try that?” asks Bristow. 

“Go on, stage it,” says I. 

So when Swifty is called in I’m discovered with 
my overcoat and hat on, standin’ by the door reg- 
isterin’ suppressed grief. 

“Gallagher,” says Mr. Bristow, “how would you 
like to take charge of this establishment?” 

“Me?” says Swifty, his mouth droppin’ open. 
“Why — why — what about Shorty McCabe?” 

Then Bristow springs his tale about how I’ve 
been speculatin’ in stock and not only lost my pile, 


43 


HOW THEY GET THAT WAY 

but given out a lot of notes I can’t meet, hintin’ 
that lie’s bought ’em up and taken over the Studio. 

4 'I’ve been having a talk with Professor McCabe,” 
goes on Bristow, “and find that I would not care 
to have him continue as manager. His methods 
would not suit me at all. So I am requesting him 
to leave at once. I am prepared to offer you twice 
your present salary to take his place.” 

He’s no rapid fire thinker, Swifty. The speed of 
his mental reactions is about equal to the gait of a 
turtle in low gear. For a minute he stands there 
gawpin’, first at me and then at Bristow. Then he 
acts like he was tryin’ to swallow a crust of bread. 
Finally he separates himself from the words that 
have been cloggin’ the works. 

“Ah-r-chee!” he snorts. “Wotcher take me for?” 

“Do I understand, my man,” asks Bristow, “that 
you decline?” 

“Sure,” says Swifty. “If Shorty gets the chuck 
I goes wit’ him. See?” 

“Just a moment,” puts in Bristow. “Perhaps 
you imagine that he may make a new start some- 
where else. What if that should prove impossible? 
What if he had used other people’s money in his 
speculations — some of yours, it might be — and might 
end his career in jail?” 

“It’s a frame-up, that’s all,” says Swifty. “I 
know Shorty as well as I knows myself, and take it 
from me, they don’t make ’em any straighter. As 
for me workin’ for a fish-eyed crook like you, 
nothin’ doing. Come on, Shorty. I got a little 


44 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


wad stowed away in the Savin’s Bank, and a few 
Liberty bonds we can cash in, and ” 

Well, there I had to crash in. I was gettin’ dewy 
in the eyes and I felt like I had a bone in my throat. 
“Say, Bristow, I guess this has gone far enough, 
ain’t it?” says I. “Don’t let ’em kid you, Swifty. 
You’re a good scout, all right, and everything is just 
as it was before the rehearsal started. Only I ex- 
pect you’ve qualified in Class A.” 

“Eh?” says Swifty, still doin’ the open face act. 
“Wha — what’s the grand little idea? Was — was 
that tale of his about you bein’ on the rocks all 
bunk?” 

“Absolutely,” says I. “It was raw stuff to pull 
on you, I’ll admit, but Mr. Bristow and me was 
havin’ a little debate about whether or not there 
was such a thing as friends, and when I mentions 
you as one I thought I could count on, he had this 
merry notion about puttin’ you through the acid 
test. Now I hope he’s satisfied.” 

“Huh!” says Swifty. “Ain’t he got friends of 
his own he could practice on?” 

“Mr Bristow doesn’t believe in friends,” says I. 
“Says they don’t exist.” 

Swifty eyes him curious while he takes a deep 
breath or two. Then he observes from the south 
corner of his mouth: “Say, how does he get that 
way?” 

“He’s just been tellin’ me, Swifty,” says I. “He’s 
discovered somewhere that folks are friendly for 
what there is in it. Says we’re all made like that. 


HOW THEY GET THAT WAY 45 

Also that whatever he wants he can go out and buy. 
Ho I get it straight, Mr. Bristow?” 

He nods. 

“How about you, Shorty?” demands Swifty. 
“You don’t fall for that stuff, do you?” 

“No,” says I. “If I’d had any inclinations that 
way, you’d have cured me just now. I guess I got 
to stick to believin’ in friends. I hope I have a few 
here and there, such as they are. Anyway, there’s 
you and Pinckney. Odd combination you two make. 
About as much alike as a clam and a cucumber. I 
wouldn’t claim either of you was perfect, either. 
You’ll admit you ain’t any parlor ornament, 
Swifty, and there’s a few little points about polite 
refinement that you ain’t sopped up yet. While as 
for Pinckney Ogden Bruce, he’s about as useless and 
scatter-brained as an Airedale pup. But I wouldn’t 
like to lose either of you from my list. Funny, 
ain’t it? 

“I’m just beginnin’ to dope out the answer. You 
might take this, Merkins. Maybe Mr. Bristow could 
make something out of it. For it strikes me that if 
all of us demanded perfect parties for friends 
there ’d be few of us who’d deserve ’em. As it is, 
we seem to like ’em for what they are, the good 
along with the bad. Anyway, mine must take me 
that way.” 

“You’ll pardon me, Professor,” says Bristow, 
“if I do not agree with you.” 

“If you did,” says I, “I’d begin to suspect 
myself. ’ ’ 


46 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


He comes back with another of them crooked 
smiles, but it’s kind of a sickly attempt. “I have 
no intention of trying to force my theories on any- 
one,” says he. “But to get back to more concrete 
affairs: What about those afternoons? Suppose I 
make it fifteen hundred?” 

“No use,” says I. “That’s one of the things 
you can’t wave your check book and get. I wouldn’t 
try to sell you fifteen hundred dollars’ worth of 
health, Mr. Bristow, because I couldn’t deliver the 
goods.” 

“May I ask why you could not?” says he. 

“I wouldn’t press that if I was you,” says I. 

“But I do,” says he. 

“All right, then, I’ll have to give it to you,” says 
I. “Your complaint is common enough these days, 
and it’s something that exercise and diet and deep 
breathing won’t touch. You’ve got a bad case of 
money on the brain complicated by bats in the 
belfry. Too many fool ideas that you think are 
chunks of solid wisdom, and too chronic a habit of 
going out to buy the world. I can think of only one 
treatment that would help.” 

“Yes?” says Bristow, lettin’ on to be amused. 
“And that is?” 

“Sue some newspaper for libel,” says I, “and 
let ’em put you on the witness stand.” 

I don’t mind sayin’ either, that I took more or 
less satisfaction in handin’ that to Thomas D. Bris- 
tow. But Swifty, after chewin’ a lead pencil for 
near two hours and coverin’ the whole back of a 


HOW THEY GET THAT WAY 47 

calendar, figures out how my fun cost me something 
like $489 a minute. 

4 4 Stop your ticklin’, Swifty,” says I. 4 4 You 
make me feel like a plute.” 


IV 


WHY THE AMMI LINE KEEPS ON 


OURSE, I’ll admit that when it comes to 



mixin’ in society affairs I’m a flivver. I 


expect I’m about as useful and ornamental 
at a pink tea or a dinner dance as an expert horse- 
shoer would be on a battleship. It’s all out of my 
line. Absolutely. 

Now down at the Physical Culture Studio it’s 
easy for me to kid myself into thinkin’ I’m some 
guy; for there I know what I’m doing, and my old 
reg’lars hail me respectful as “ Professor McCabe,” 
or “ Shorty,” dependin’ on how long they’ve known 
me. And even when I give off opinions about pol- 
itics, or the state of the market, or how the big strike 
will come out, they stretch an ear. But when I 
button myself into open front evenin’ clothes and 
crash in where the orchestra is jazzin’ away behind 
the palms and the patronesses are standin’ stately 
in a row, and the butler is towin’ in new arrivals — 
well, that’s when my battin’ average takes a big 
slump. 

And yet, being one of the leadin’ commuters of 
Rockhurst-on-the-Sound — that is, I’m generally first 
off the 6 :03 at night — and chairman of the house 
committee at the Yacht and Country Club, I can’t 


48 


WHY THE AMMI LINE KEEPS ON 49 


seem to duck appearin’ at these festive occasions 
now and then. Besides, Mrs. McCabe wouldn’t stand 
for my side-steppin’ ’em, if I could. 

That’s my alibi for gettin’ tangled up in this 
three-sided Ammi Ruhamah episode so bad, and 
playin’ such a prominent part in a silly game that 
I should have had sense enough to leave to the old 
dowagers and the young matrons to settle. No, 
Ammi Ruhamah wasn’t one of these theosophy lec- 
turers, nor a Far East poet draped in ’steen yards 
of dish-toweling and a bonnet that looked like it had 
been put on in the accident ward. Nothing like 
that. And while you’re scratchin’ your head I’ll 
begin back where Sadie calls me one side durin’ our 
Hunter’s moon dance at the Club and starts dealin’ 
out the gentle reproof. 

“ Shorty,” says she, “I notice that your young 
Mr. Bedford Ames is here again tonight.” 

“Why not!” says I. “Ain’t he one of the new 
members now! And if he can do this jazz stuff with 
his feet as well as he can sail Brick Hartley’s knock- 
about, I guess ” 

“That’s precisely the trouble with him,” breaks 
in Sadie. “He does dance very well. But he dances 
too much with Dixie Patten. ’ ’ 

“Does he!” says I. “Well, I hadn’t noticed the 
young lady gettin’ sulky over it.” 

“Perhaps not,” says Sadie. “But I may as well 
tell you, Shorty, that it won’t do. Dixie’s aunt 
doesn’t like it at all and I think you had better drop 
him a hint.” 

“Eh!” says I, gawpin’. “Me! Ah, say! Since 


50 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


when did I qualify as a he-chaperone ? Quit your 
kiddin’, Sadie.” 

But that’s the last thing she has in mind. Inside 
of three minutes I’ve had it put straight to me that 
this is serious business. For, accordin’ to her, 
Dixie is as good as engaged to Oggie Gibbs. They 
got that way down at White Sulphur early last 
Spring. And didn’t Oggie spend a whole week in 
Lexington, Ky., being entertained by Aunt Alicia 
Patten and playin’ around with Dixie? He did. 
Which is why Auntie is stayin’ north so long this 
Fall. And now this Bedford Ames person seems 
likely to decant the whole dish of beans. 

‘ ‘ Good work if he did, too, if you ask me,” says I. 

“But no one is asking you, Shorty,” is the smooth 
come-back I get from Sadie. “Dixie’s aunt much 
prefers young Mr. Gibbs.” 

1 1 Shows her poor taste, then, ” says I. “I ’ll admit 
that Oggie is some headliner when it comes to fig- 
urin’ on incomes, but it was all wished on him by 
a fond grandmother. Also his displacement must be 
near 200 pounds. But when you’ve said that you’ve 
told about all. So far as I’ve discovered Oggie don’t 
carry much between the ears, unless it’s water bal- 
last. He’s what I call a mental dud, Oggie.” 

Sadie shrugs her shoulders. “Perhaps you are 
prejudiced, Shorty,” says she. “Sometimes you are, 
you know. And as for young Mr. Ames, just who 
is he anyway? Runs a mill up in Vermont, doesn’t 
he?” , 

“Chair fact’ry,” says I. “Any kind of chairs, 
from porch rockers to veneered back foldin’ opera 


WHY THE AMMI LINE KEEPS ON 51 


house seats. Turns out a car-load a day. And he’s 
a live wire, Bedford is. He’s opened a Broadway 
sales office and is gettin’ orders hand over fist. 
Landed a fat one from our school board. That’s how 
me and Brick Hartley got to know him.” 

4 ‘ Quite thrilling ! ” says Sadie. 4 1 But I rather sus- 
pect that Miss Alicia Patten has other ambitions 
for Dixie than to have her marry a man who runs 
a chair factory. The Pattens, you know, are one 
of the oldest families in Kentucky. Dixie’s grand- 
father was a governor, or something; one of her 
uncles was a senator, and her father was Judge Pat- 
ten. The line goes way back, I hear.” 

“Yes, you’d be bound to hear about it if it did,” 
says I. “Trust anybody south of Trenton for that. 
And I ain’t denyin’ but what Dixie is some cute 
little queen, all right. But then, Bedford Ames ain’t 
so hard to look at himself, is he?” 

Sadie shakes her head. “Being a man,” says she, 
“of course you couldn’t be expected to understand. 
Young Mr. Ames may be rather a nice young fel- 
low, but he is hardly the match for Dixie that 
Ogden Gibbs would make, and if he doesn ’t want to 
spoil her prospects — well, he must be told, that’s 
all.” 

“That being the case,” says I, “somebody be- 
sides me has got to do the tellin’. I’m backin’ Bed- 
ford both ways.” 

So that lines me up with the opposition. Not that 
I meant to kick into the affair personally, or pull 
any wires for my favorite. I’d be sure to bug things 
up if I did. But if there was any rootin’ to be done 


52 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


along the side-lines I knew who I was lettin’ out the 
hollers for. 

Maybe I wore kind of a satisfied grin, too, as I 
stands in the smokin’ room door and watches young 
Ames and Miss Dixie pairin’ off for about two 
dances out of five. He’s a tall, straight, well-built 
young chap, quiet spoken and well-mannered, with- 
out being any parlor hound. And when she drapes 
one arm around his shoulder and they float off to 
a fox-trot tune they make kind of a well-mated 
couple, to my way of thinkin’. 

Across the ball room I got glimpses of a group 
that I can guess holds a different opinion. Aunt 
Alicia is in the middle, with her pointed Kentucky 
chin well in the air and her black eyes flashin’ 
ominous. Consolin’ her on one side is Mrs. Boomer- 
Day and on the other is Sadie and Mrs. Purdy Pell. 
I couldn’t just see how they was goin’ to break up 
the combination, unless they formed a flyin’ wedge 
and gave Bedford the low tackle when he wasn’t 
lookin’. And of course they don’t try that. 

As for Oggie Gibbs, he seems to be flutterin’ 
around with various sweet young things. No trou- 
ble at all for Oggie to find substitutes, it seems. 
And if he was sore at Dixie for playin’ somebody 
else for first place he don’t show it. Maybe the fact 
hadn’t trickled through into the vacuum yet. Any- 
way, he dances once or twice with her when his turn 
comes, after which she just naturally drifts off with 
young Ames again, and for an hour or more they 
seems to be missin’ altogether. 

Well, if the opposition had been stirred up before 


WHY THE AMMI LINE KEEPS ON 53 


yon can bet that by now they was on the warpath 
for fair. I could see ’em with their heads together, 
probably plottin’ an offensive of some kind. Once 
I strolls past, but not too near, and favors Sadie 
with a grin, which was kind of a reckless thing to 
do. But I got away with it and dodges out on the 
east veranda, where I finds Oggie Gibbs wanderin’ 
around sort of aimless, like he’d parted his moor- 
ings and was being carried out with the tide. Next 
thing I know he’s hailed me. 

“Oh, I say, McCabe,” says he, “I — ah — I’m look- 
ing for Miss Patten.” 

“Are you?” says I. “Well, how’s the lookin’?” 

“I beg pardon?” says he. 

“What luck you having?” says I. 

“None at all,” says he. “That’s why I men- 
tioned it, you know. And as this is the supper 
dance I really must find her, you see. I — ah — I’m 
supposed to be taking care of her, and all that. 
Deuced awkward, what?” 

‘ ‘ Cheer up, ’ ’ says I. ‘ ‘ Maybe you ’re being helped 
out unbeknown. ’ ’ 

“Eh?” says Oggie, starin’ at me with all the 
lively intelligence of a stuffed fish. 

“Never mind, Oggie,” says I, “when it comes 
down to sympathy you’re pullin’ down the big end.” 
And I leaves him with his mouth still open while I 
goes chucklin’ into the Trophy room where Brick 
Hartley is tellin’ that one about the old salt who 
was visitin’ ashore and tried to drive a mule. 

Must have been half an hour or more later when 
this stag session of ours broke up and I was on 


54 MEET ’EM WITH SHOETY McCABE 


my way to hunt up Sadie and suggest that as it’s 
after midnight maybe we might as well be toddlin’ 
toward home. It was while I was hangin’ up by 
the ball-room door that I spot a young couple appear 
from a dark corner of the veranda and part with 
a lingerie hand squeeze. Uh-huh. It’s Dixie Pat- 
ten and young Ames. As she pushes past me and 
makes for Auntie with her ears all pinked up Bed- 
ford grabs me by the arms and whispers something 
husky. 

“You’re what?” says I, not quite catchin’ him. 

“I’m in and out of luck at the same time,” says 
he. “And I need your help, Shorty.” 

“Want somebody to hold the other hand?” I 
asks. 

He laughs easy. “Hardly,” says he. “You must 
have had a glimpse of something?” 

“Just a flicker over my shoulder,” says I. “But 
I judged you’d been findin’ the party a pleasant 
one. ’ ’ 

“Glorious!” says he. “And I’ve also found out 
who is the finest little girl in the world. ’ ’ 

“Yes,” says I, “we put up that porch swing spe- 
cial for making discoveries like that. It’s been 
quite a success, I understand, for the past four 
seasons. ’ ’ 

“But this is the real thing, Shorty,” says he. 
“Dixie and I — well, she’s some girl.” 

“No debate,” says I. “Comes from a fine old 
Southern fam’ly, too, as Aunt Alicia will tell you 
if she gets a chance.” 


WHY THE AMMI LINE KEEPS ON 55 

“That’s the difficult part of this business — Aunt 
Alicia,’ ’ says Bedford solemn. 

“What a grand little guesser you are !” says I. 

‘ ‘ Oh, she ’s made it plain enough, ’ ’ says he. “I ’ve 
been in range of those black eyes of hers more 
than once. But I haven’t been worrying about her 
until I found out how I stood with Dixie. And 
now that I know — well, there’s something that 
Auntie must be asked to tell Dixie about — about 
me.” 

“How simple!” says I. “I should say that 
would be the easiest thing Auntie did. Persuadin’ 
her will be more or less of a cinch. All you got to 
do is to ramble over to Aunt Alicia, spill it to her 
confidential, and ” 

“But that’s the point, Shorty,” he breaks in. 
“It — it’s something I couldn’t possibly tell to any- 
one’s aunt.” 

“Eh?” says I. “Bad as that? Ah, come! You 
don’t strike me as a young chap with a past that 
needs formaldehyde on it.” 

“Thanks, Shorty,” says he. “It isn’t exactly my 
past; that is, my own particular and personal past. 
Still ” 

By that time we’d edged out toward the veranda 
rail and I’d hoisted myself up on it with my back 
comfortable against a post. 

“Go on, Bedford,” says I. “Shoot.” 

“To take a flying start,” says he, “my respected 
grandfather was rather a queer old scout.” 

“Many of ’em was,” says I. “What was his 


56 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


line? Collectin’ horses from the neighbors, or 
sportin’ too many wives at once?” 

“Nothing like that,” says Bedford. “He was 
Deacon Ames and he carried his religion round with 
him seven days a week. During the Civil War he 
got to be a colonel or something of the sort. After- 
wards he started the chair factory.” 

“Oh, well,” says I, “somebody had to make 
chairs, I expect. He might have done worse.” 

Bedford waves this aside. “His full name,” he 
goes on, “was Ammi Ruhamah Ames.” 

“That was something to stagger along under,” 
says I. “Did they call him after one of the signs 
of the Zodiac, or was it a trottin’ horse?” 

“Here is where we really do dip into the past,” 
says Bedford. “My grandfather Ames wasn’t the 
only Ammi Ruhamah in the family. He was the 
third, I believe, and there have been two more 
since. ’ ’ 

“Kind of run to that monicker, do you?” says I. 

“Worse than that,” says Bedford. “It was 
merely a habit at first, a tradition. I hope I shan ’t 
bore you, Shorty, if I tell you how it started. It 
seems that the early Ameses settled in Topsfield, 
Mass., after they quit the Plymouth hunch. That’s 
not far from Salem, you know; and Salem is where 
they had that pleasant little custom of burning 
witches. You’ve read all about that, of course?” 

“Well, I’m a little vague on the subject,” I ad- 
mits, “but I expect I’ve heard it sketched out. Boom 
along.” 

“Rummy old codgers, those Puritans, eh?” says 


WHY THE AMMI LINE KEEPS ON 57 

Bedford. “The witch burning fad spread to other 
places. Topsfield got it. Didn’t mean to be out of 
style, I suppose. And, as near as I can figure, the 
way it worked out was something like this : If you 
got sore on a neighbor for any reason, and wanted 
to get square with him, you began to throw out 
hints that his wife was a little queer in the head. 
Maybe you ’d seen her making soap without any fire 
under the kettle; or you’d heard her talking with 
a black crow, who was probably none other than 
the Old Boy himself; or some one had said they’d 
seen her taking a joy ride on a broom stick. They 
were ingenious at making up weird tales like that. 
And all you had to do to start something was to 
whisper a few things of the sort around after meet- 
ing. 

“Well, that’s what they did for the wife of an 
original Ames. I’ve forgotten just how many times 
a great-great-grandmother of mine she was. Bright, 
clever old girl she was, I understand; a trifle 
too bright to be popular. Tongue a bit too sharp. 
Anyway, they wished this witch business on her. 
There was a trial and she was promptly found 
guilty. They nearly always found ’em guilty. She 
was about to be sentenced to be burned at the stake, 
too, when Great-great-granddaddy Ames rose in 
court to make a few remarks. He wasn’t rash 
enough to question the honesty of the judges or the 
value of the evidence. It might be so that his wife 
was a witch. He hadn’t noticed it himself; but 
then, perhaps he didn’t know a witch when he saw 
one. And if she really was a witch, as the honor- 


58 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


able court had decided, it might be best to burn 
her. That was the law, and he was as strong for 
the law as anyone. And yet, if the sentence should 
be carried out there would arise a certain com- 
plication of which the learned judges had not been 
informed. He thought it only just to the court to 
put them wise. For the fact was that the lady in 
question — well, he expected her soon to add another 
Ames to the family, and the judges could see for 
themselves that if she was to be burned next Fri- 
day on the cow commons an innocent life would be 
sacrificed, perhaps an heir to the house of Ames. 
All of which would be distinctly unfair to him as a 
father, and to the coming heir. It would be judi- 
cial murder, no less, and he was sure the court 
meant to do nothing of the kind. 

“ Rather a nice point, eh? Anyway, it was a 
winner. Sentence was suspended and the bonfire 
was postponed indefinitely. In fact, it never came 
off , or I wouldn ’t be bothering you now. And sure 
enough, it proved to be an heir. Naturally the 
shrewd old boy was rather grateful. Also he knew 
his Old Testament very well, for when it came to 
naming the youngster what did he do but dig out 
this Ammi Ruhamah stuff — Hosea Il-i. It means, 
you know, ‘My people, having obtained mercy.’ Pat 
enough, but, as you suggest, a good deal of a name. 
They didn’t care much, though, how they loaded 
down their children in those days. My Great-great- 
granddaddy grew up as Ammi Ruhamah Ames. 
And when he had a son he had him christened Ammi 
Ruhamah, too. And so on. They s’eemed to do 


WHY THE AMMI LINE KEEPS ON 59 


fairly well with the name, or in spite of it. One got 
to be governor, another was foreign minister to 
some country, and most of them kept out of jail. 
None got to be very rich, though. 

“It was my own grandfather, however, who 
seemed to take this name custom seriously. He 
made my father promise to call his first son Ammi 
Ruhamah and to see that the name was handed on 
down. So my older brother was another to call his 
first son Ammi Ruhamah and how they did kid 
him about it at college. And he had already prom- 
ised to give his first boy the name. But he needn’t 
have worried about that. He was a first lieutenant 
in the Yankee Division and got his early in the muss 
near Soissons, while I was still down in Texas learn- 
ing to land an army plane without crashing into 
the landscape. 

“Tough about Ammi. He was a good scout, if 
there ever was one. Broke us all up a lot. Espe- 
cially Dad. And when I got home he put this up to 
me about carrying on the name. Of course I said 
I would. It didn’t seem much to promise, and I 
thought very little of it at the time. But now — 
well, since I’ve met Dixie and we’ve as good as set- 
tled things, it — it looks different. As for me, I’m 
rather used to the name. Hardly strikes me as odd. 
But she might think that Ammi Ruhamah was rather 
dreadful. Anyway, she ought to know, and it’s 
something I can’t tell her myself. Now can I, 
Shorty — the whole thing, about the witch trial and 
everything?” 

“No,” says I, “I don’t see how you could, ex- 


60 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


actly. And if you’ll excuse me, Bedford, I don’t 
feel quite up to the job, either. It’s flatterin’ to be 
asked, I know, but ” 

“No, no!” put in Bedford hastily. “Certainly 
not. But I thought you might tell it to Mrs. Mc- 
Cabe, and get her to — er — break the news.” 

“Yes, I might do that,” says I. “But she’s on 
the other side, you know. Besides, if you don’t 
mind my sayin’ so, it’s kind of a fishy tale. And I 
might not get it all straight.” 

“Oh, for that matter,” says he, “it’s all down in 
a book — ‘Frothingham’s History of Salem, Mass.’ 
I could dig up a copy for you tomorrow.” 

“All right,” says I. “Give me all the docu- 
ments in the case and I’ll see that they’re filed. But 
if I was you I’d kind of brace myself for a blast 
from Auntie. From all I can hear she’s got you 
crossed off already, on account of the chair fact’ry, 
and when she gets the details of this Ammi Ru- 
hamah business I look for her to take Dixie by the 
hand and start for Kentucky. If you insist, though, 
I’ll make the play.” 

Which I did. And Sadie sits up half the night 
readin’ about that witch trial. Then she starts out 
for a confab with Aunt Alicia. And when I come 
home that evening I find her beamin’. 

“Well,” says I. “I expect you’ve got it all fixed 
up how Bedford is to be ditched?” 

“Don’t be absurd, Shorty,” says she. “We’ve 
fixed up nothing of the kind. In fact, Mrs. Purdy 
Pell is inviting him out for the next week-end. Miss 
Alicia and Dixie will be there, too.” 


WHY THE AMMI LINE KEEPS ON 61 


“Eh!” I gasps. 

“Do you know,” says Sadie, “we have found 
that he comes from a most distinguished Nlew Eng- 
land family, real Plymouth Rock stock. Why, the 
Ameses are entitled to sport a coat of arms, and 
all that.” 

“Oh!” says I, gettin’ a sudden light on this quick 
shift. 

“And just think, Shorty,” she goes on, “of in- 
heriting a name that has been handed down for two 
hundred years! Now, that’s what I call an honest- 
to-goodness ancestry. But why didn’t he tell about 
it at the start!” 

“Who, Bedford!” says I. “Not a chance. I 
don’t know exactly why, either. But I expect that 
up in Vermont it ain’t being done.” 


y 


TWO GUESSES ON MARTHA 

I T didn’t seem as though it could be so, but all 
the signs read that Pinckney had something on 
his mind. For one thing he hadn’t favored me 
with a foolish remark for at least four minutes. 
He’d just been sittin’ there in the front office of the 
Physical Culture Studio, hoi din’ a cigarette at 
arm’s length between his thumb and forefinger, and 
starin’ at it like it was one of these crystal gazin’ 
balls. 

Also he’d chuckled twice, and Pinckney only 
chuckles out loud when things are goin’ wrong. 
When he’s really pleased or amused he takes it out 
in twistin’ his mouth around and hunchin’ his eye- 
brows; but when something serious is happenin’ to 
him, such as discoverin’ that his man has put pearl 
cuff links in his afternoon shirt, or that the butler 
has used the wrong kind of vinegar in the salad 
dressin’, then he disguises his real feelin’s by 
makin’ this queer noise in his throat. At the sec- 
ond chuckle I turns my head around to get a bet- 
ter look. 

“Ah, come!” says I. “Spill it.” 

“Eh? I— I beg pardon?” says he, coming out 
62 


TWO GUESSES ON MARTHA 63 

of the spell gradual. “Oh, yes! I must have been 
thinking, Shorty.’ ’ 

“Painful process, ain’t it?” says I. “ ’Spe- 
cially when you ain’t used to it.” 

He waves that aside easy, lights a fresh dope 
stick, and squints at me through a smoke ring. 
“Shorty,” says he, “were you ever troubled by an 
elderly female relative who had developed a social 
complex?” 

“I ain’t sure,” says I. “I remember an aunt 
who was a snuff dipper.” 

“No,” says he, “I fear you do not quite grasp 
the meaning of social complex. It’s a Freudian 

term, and is used to indicate a person who But 

perhaps it would be simpler to tell you directly 
about Cousin Martha.” 

i ‘ What ? ’ ’ says I. ‘ 4 The nice lookin ’ little old girl 
with the silver hair and the live-wire eyes? You 
don’t mean to tell me her gears are out of mesh?” 

“Only in the Freudian sense, if at all,” says 
Pinckney. “Any complex is difficult to determine, 
you know. And hers takes a peculiar turn. She 
insists that New York is not a fit place in which to 
live.” 

“It’s lucky they can’t put you in the nut works 
for that,” says I. “If they could there wouldn’t be 
enough barred windows to go around. ’ ’ 

Pinckney shrugs his shoulders. “Oh, I under- 
stand,” says he. “With young children growing 
up it’s different. But Cousin Martha has no such 
excuse. ’ ’ 

He’s perfectly serious about this. Anybody who 


64 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


can live in New York and don’t Well, there 

must be something the matter with ’em. Course, 
it’s all right enough to be away two or three months 
in the Summer, or to have a country place like his 
Hickory Top joint up in Connecticut where you can 
run out for the week-end; but not to be within 
walkin’ distance of Fifth Avenue most of the year, 
not to have one or two clubs where you call the 
doorman by his first name — that’s his idea of a dull 
gray existence. You might as well be a potato 
sproutin’ in some cellar. 

I happened to be in on the little debate he had 
with this Cousin Martha when she first showed up, 
a month or so back. She’s a cousin of his mother’s, 
as a matter of fact, a widow. Her hubby had been 
a banker in some one-horse burg up state — some 
place like Cohoes, or Skaneateles, or Malone — and 
when he’d checked out, ten years or so ago, Martha 
had begun this globe trottin’ act of hers. 

First off she ’d only been rung in on one of these 
sixty-day steamer trips; where they hustle you 
through the Orient and back, allowin’ you time to 
buy picture postcards in Cairo, Constantinople and 
Bombay. She’d gone with an old friend who was* 
principal of a girls’ boardin’ school. She’d had 
to be urged a good deal, at that. But once she found 
how easy it was to pack a steamer trunk and flit off 
to foreign parts she seemed to get the habit. The 
next season she spent doin’ the Riviera and she 
came back to the one-horse burg for only long 
enough to sell out the old double-breasted mansion 
with the jig-saw decorations, and scandalize the 


TWO GUESSES ON MARTHA 


65 


members of the Sewing Circle by puffin ’ at a cork- 
tipped cigarette when tea was served. That winter 
she had a villa at Biarritz, wherever that is. And 
so it had gone on since. 

“If you please, Cousin Martha,” demands Pinck- 
ney, “why do you do it!” 

She cocks her head on one side perky and favors 
him with one of her quizzin’ smiles. “Why, my 
dear Pinckney,” says she. “I am enjoying the 
freedom of the late fifties. You see, while Abner 
was alive we led a most proper and well ordered 
life. The sun, moon and stars in their orbits were 
not more regular. At 8 :30 every week day morning 
Abner left home for the bank. He returned at 5 :15. 
For more than twenty years we had supper at ex- 
actly six o’clock. On the first Thursday of every 
month I entertained the Circle. When I had but 
one maid we washed Mondays, ironed Tuesdays, 
cleaned house Wednesdays, and baked Saturdays. 
When I had two we did the same. I remember but 
two occasions when the schedule was broken. Once 
Abner took me to New York and I saw ‘The Old 
Homestead’ at the Academy of Music, and once we 
went to Syracuse to attend his brother’s funeral. 
Abner was a good man, a kind husband — but twenty 
years of six o ’clock suppers had worn a groove into 
which I fitted as a snail in its shell. I didn’t know 
it until I escaped by accident. And I have never 
eaten at 6 o’clock since.” 

“But just where have you been during the last 
two years!” asks Pinckney. 

“Oh, wandering about, waiting for Europe, Asia 


66 MEET ’EM WITH SHOKTY McCABE 


and Africa to settle down,” says Cousin Martha. “I 
spent a delightful eight months in Japan. Then I 
crossed to Honolulu, expecting to stay a week, and 
lingered there a whole season. Next down the west 
coast of South America. I was charmed with Lima. 
And coming back I spent a winter in Colon. Now 
I am waiting to hear if it is safe to go back to my 
villa on the outskirts of Algiers. But they say the 
desert tribes are still restive. It was one of their 
raids which drove me out, you know. We could see 
them from the upper windows, rushing in from the 
white hills, and for ten days we lived behind barri- 
caded gates, practically besieged. I do hope they 
will calm down soon, so that I may go back.” 

“Go back!” echoes Pinckney. “That is what I 
fail to understand, Martha. There’s no necessity 
for you to live in such remote and utterly impossible 
places, is there? You haven’t been banished, or 
anything. You haven’t bartered your birthright for 
a mess of potash ” 

“Pottage, my dear Pinckney,” puts in Cousin 
Martha. 

“Quite the same,” says Pinckney. “Anyway, 
why exile yourself?” 

Her answer to that is simple. She kind of likes 
it, for one thing; besides, she has to live somewhere. 
The old home town won’t do any longer. She’s off 
them Hick stations for good. And as for settlin’ 
down in New York, as Pinckney suggests, she really 
couldn’t. She doesn’t care for our town and never 
did. 

“But why?” insists Pinckney. 


TWO GUESSES ON MARTHA 


67 


“If you must know,” says Cousin Martha, “I 
think New York is perfectly horrid. You call it a 
great city. I don’t. It’s big enough, goodness 
knows. But it isn’t urban, as Havana is. That’s a 
real city. So is Buenos Aires. And Cairo and 
Tokyo and Madrid. But New York is an overgrown 
country town, full of countrified people mixed indis- 
criminately with the scum of many nations ; a crude, 
noisy mob living in a crude, noisy manner. A sorry 
mess, I find it.” 

Pinckney gasps at that. He stares at Cousin 
Martha as if she’d thrown an egg at the statue of 
George Washington or committed high treason. 

“Oh, I say!” he protests. “Those are just your 
silly prejudices, that’s all. And you have them 
because you don’t really know New York. You 
haven’t tried living here. And you should. It isn’t 
decent for a lone woman of your years to go wan- 
dering around the face of the earth the way you 
do. Positively, it isn’t. Come, give us a trial.” 

His proposition was that Cousin Martha unpack 
her trunks at his house and stick out the rest of the 
winter. He was willin’ to bet, too, that inside of 
two months she wouldn ’t want to live anywhere else 
in the world. And Cousin Martha had smiled and 
said that to please him she would take a chance. 

Most folks would, for if anybody in this burg 
lives comfy and elegant it’s the Lionel Pinckney 
Ogden Bruces. Course, their big old brownstone 
house is on Madison and not Fifth, and they don’t 
splurge on annual crushes that win columns of space 
in the society doin’s; but Pinckney’s been a box 


68 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


subscriber to the opera and horse show since be 
came of age, and Mrs. Bruce’s twelve-plate dinner 
parties are admitted to be the last word in polite 
feedin’. So if there was any place where Cousin 
Martha could see New York at its best, Pinckney’s 
was the spot. Yet here he is shakin’ his head over 
her. 

1 ‘ She will persist in poking around in such queer 
places,” says he. “Yesterday she was down on 
the lower East Side and saw the police rounding 
up a gang of gunmen. Coming home she got mixed 
up in a crush on the Third Avenue L and watched 
the guards put off some car rowdies. The day be- 
fore she went with some friend who has charge of 
a settlement house and sat all through a session 
of police court. Told us all about the long line of 
prisoners — drunks, thieves, street walkers and so on 
— at dinner that night. And today she’s missing 
again. She was to have lunched with us at the 
Plutoria at 1 :30, but she never came. Heaven 
knows where she is.” 

“Lively old girl, I’ll say,” says I. “Maybe this 
time she’s ” 

Just then the ’phone rings and I answers it. 
“For you, Pinckney,” says I, handin’ over the re- 
ceiver. “.Mrs. Bruce on the wire.” 

“What!” says Pinckney, after listenin’ a minute. 
“You don’t mean it. Yes, I’ll go right down.” 
Then he turns to me. “It’s Cousin Martha again: 
She’s held at Police Headquarters.” 

“Maybe she’s been overheard statin’ her opinion 
of the town,” I suggests. 


TWO GUESSES ON MARTHA 


69 


But that wasn’t quite the case. “Suspicious 
character, ’ ’ says the detective sergeant who brought 
her in. “I got her up in a department store where 
I was laying for Albany Annie, one of the slickest 
lady dips in the business. I was just nippin’ Annie, 
with her fingers on a gold mesh purse, when this 
other one interfered and started giving me a line 
of talk. One of the same gang, I expect, so I brought 
her along. She’s in havin’ her thumb autographs 
printed.” 

Course, it would have been satisfyin’ to have 
pointed out to him how he was all right except for 
too much bone in the head, but it wouldn’t have got 
us anywhere. Instead I hunts up a deputy commis- 
sioner that I happens to know, explains who Pinck- 
ney is, has him make an affidavit that this is a cousin 
of his in good standing, and in the course of an hour 
or so we are allowed to lead Martha out into Mul- 
berry Street and hail a taxi. 

“Just as a matter of curiosity, Cousin Martha,” 
says Pinckney, “why did you interfere?” 

“Because,” says Martha, “the woman was so well 
dressed and had such nice eyes. The officer was 
rather rough about it, too. He grabbed her by the 
wrist. Now there was no necessity for that, was 
there?” And she turns to me. 

“If it was Albany Annie,” says I, “I should say 
that a quick grab and a sure one was needed. They 
don’t come any slipperier, I understand. And they 
say she can use an automatic with the best of ’em.” 

Cousin Martha shudders. “What a dreadful 
place to live in ! ” says she. 1 1 Nothing but crime and 


70 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


criminals and violence wherever you turn. And 
yet Pinckney wishes me to make this my home.” 

“No,” says Pinckney. “I take it all back. I 
shouldn’t have a moment’s peace if you did, for you 
seem to have a fatal facility for unearthing trouble. 
I shall be glad if we can get you home before you 
stir up a riot.” 

Cousin Martha smiles indulgent. “I’ll tell you 
where I should like to try living for a while,” says 
she. 

4 4 Where ? ’ ’ demands Pinckney. 

“In some quiet, sleepy little New England village, 
where nothing at all ever happens,” says she. “You 
know, a very small place. If I could only find one 
that ” 

Here Pinckney gives me the nudge. “Oh, I say, 
Shorty ! ’ ’ says he. 4 4 What about Hickory Hollow ? ’ ’ 

4 4 That ought to qualify, ’ ’ says I. 

4 4 It isn’t a big village, is it?” asks Cousin Martha. 

4 4 It’s a wide place in the road,” says I, 4 4 with 
Ladd’s general store on one side, Grange Hall on 
the other, and the Union Church just beyond. It’s- 
up in the Connecticut valley, twelve miles from a 
railroad and three from Pinckney’s country place, 
Hickory Top.” 

4 4 And you are sure nothing happens there?” in- 
sists Cousin Martha. 

4 4 Why,” says I, “I believe one corner of the old 
barrel factory burned down durin’ the blizzard of 

’98, and then two Summers ago Let’s see, what 

was the big excitement, then, Pinckney?” 


TWO GUESSES ON MARTHA 71 

“I think that was when one of Lem. Fickett’s 
cows tried to swallow a turnip/ ’ says he. 

“That was it,” says I. “And aside from them 
two catastrophes the Hollow has been fairly peace- 
ful. Course, the R. F. D. flivver comes roarin’ 
through once a day.” 

“I think I should like to see Hickory Hollow,” 
announces Martha. 

6 ‘ Nothing simpler, ’ ’ says Pinckney. 1 1 Shorty and 
I had arranged to drive up tomorrow. You see, I 
am adding two bathrooms, and the caretaker can’t 
seem to understand from the architect’s drawings 
just where the tubs are to be set. We’ll get Mrs. 
McCabe and Mrs. Bruce to go along and make a 
week-end party of it. And you shall inspect the 
Hollow.” 

So that’s what we did. It’s only a four-hour run 
in Pinckney’s limousine and we lands at Hickory 
Top in time for a late luncheon. And by 3:30 we 
was drivin ’ down to the village. It sure looks 
peaceful and quiet enough. Why not, with nothing 
to do but wait for next Spring? 

What people live on in a place like this has always 
been a mystery to me. I’ve asked Pinckney, but of 
course he don’t know. And Hi Ladd, who runs the 
store, he’ll only hunch his shoulders. Yet here are 
forty or fifty houses, with as many families, I sup- 
pose, scattered around. Nice, neat painted houses, 
some of ’em, too ; others not so neat. I expect they 
farm a little, but not enough to hurt themselves. 
They raise a few potatoes, cut a few tons of hay, 
have a few hogs and cows and hens. There are 


72 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


two or three fairly good apple orchards. One man 
has half a dozen hives of bees. But nobody seems 
to work reg’lar at anything special, and outside of 
the one clerk in Ladd’s and the postmistress I can’t 
see where a pay envelope is distributed from one 
year’s end to the other. And Pinckney says when 
he wants any of the natives to do a day’s work he 
has to beg ’em real humble. 

“Here you are,” says I, as we swings into the 
main road. “Here’s the Hollow on a busy Satur- 
day afternoon.” 

In front of one house a travelin’ meat cart had 
stopped and a trade for two pounds of round steak 
with a soup bone thrown in was under way. Across 
the way two tow-headed boys was pickin’ up wind- 
falls from under a Baldwin apple tree. Sunnin’ 
himself in front of the next gate was a fat coon 
hound. Off in a field a man was loadin’ corn-stalks 
on a wagon. On the side piazzas of most of the 
houses was displayed heaps of pumpkins and squash. 

“How restful it would be,” says Cousin Martha, 
“to settle down here for the winter. Could one 
rent a house, I wonder?” 

“I know of at least one that has been shut up, 
fully furnished, for more than a year,” says Pinck- 
ney. “Mr. Ladd can tell us.” 

“Then let us see Mr. Ladd at once,” says she. 

For a wonder there were two teams and a flivver 
parked in front of Ladd’s store. And inside we 
finds quite a mob of people, at least six or eight. 
They was all grouped around the stove in the back, 


TWO GUESSES ON MARTHA 73 

talking excited as we came in, but the minute they 
sees strangers they quits. 

“ I say, Ladd/* demands Pinckney, “what’s up? 
Not another cow tragedy, I hope?” 

Hi. Ladd hunches his shoulders. “That’s what’s 
up,” says he, pointin’ to the wreck of an iron safe 
in the comer. ‘ ‘ Gang of yeggs blowed it last night. 
Got away with near $60 in cash and a lot of Liberty 
bonds. Makes twice in three years they’ve blowed 
a safe on me.” 

Well, we sympathized with Hi. the best we could, 
at the same time tryin’ to keep Cousin Martha from 
hearin’ the news. But she came rubberin’ up and 
had to be told the whole tale. 

“Of course,” says Pinckney, “that is quite un- 
usual. May not happen again in a life time.” 

“I should think even a safe burglar would feel 
ashamed,” says Cousin Martha, “to disturb such 
a perfectly peaceful spot as this. But I presume 
there’ll be nothing of the sort for years now. And 
can’t Mr. Ladd show me some houses?” 

Hi. seems a little surprised that the lady should 
actually want to live in the Hollow when she don’t 
have to, but when she convinces him how that’s the 
big idea of her visit he allows that there’s plenty 
of room. 

‘ 6 There ’s the Hicks place, ’ ’ says Hi. ‘ ‘ Best house 
in town.” 

“But what about Jim Hicks?” says Pinckney. 
“Where is he living now?” 

“He ain’t livin’ at all,” says Mr. Ladd. “Not 
since Tuesday last.” 


74 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


“By Jove!” says Pinckney. 44 Sudden, wasn’t 
it?” 

“Tol’able,” says Hi. “Had his head right agin’ 
the muzzle of that old pump-gun of his when he 
touched ’er off with a stick. Couldn’t ’a done it 
much quicker. Had sense enough to go up into the 
attic, though.” 

“But why did he do it?” asks Pinckney. 

Hi. shakes his head. “Some say he missed the 
old lady and couldn’t git used to livin’ alone,” says 
he, “and others say he got to mixin’ hard cider 
and elderberry wine too frequent. I dunno. But 
there’s the house, empty.” 

“I don’t think I should care for that house,” says 
Cousin Martha decided. “We passed a low, 
squatty one on the way up. It was painted white 
with green blinds and looked rather attractive. But 
I suppose that is occupied. ’ ’ 

4 4 The Sam Tilley place, I expect, ’ ’ says Hi. 4 4 Yes, 
you might rent that, like as not. Marne Tilley’s 
taken the two youngsters and gone home to her 
mother, I understand.” 

4 4 But where is Sam?” asks Pinckney. 

4 4 That’s kind of a myst’ry,” says Hi. 4 4 One of 
the Plunkitt girls knows all about it, I guess. Any- 
ways, she’s missin’, too. Her and Sam had been 
pretty thick. That’s what started the little muss 
we had here Monday night, when Marne chased Jen. 
Plunkitt down the road with a carvin’ knife, both 
of ’em yellin’ like mad. Course, we don’t know, 
but it looks like Sam and Jen. had eloped, as you 
might say.” 


TWO GUESSES ON MARTHA 


75 


“I think that is quite enough,’ ’ says Cousin 
Martha. “ As I understand it, all that has happened 
in your quiet little village so far this week has been 
a burglary, a suicide and a domestic scandal?” 

4 4 That’s about all,” says Hi. reflective, “but I 
expect some of the old women could tell you of 
more that’s stewin’, ready to bile over.” 

“Thank you,” says Martha, “but I am not inter- 
ested. I have changed my mind about wanting a 
house. Come, Pinckney, for goodness sake, let’s 
go away from here. I believe it’s worse than the 
city. ’ ’ 

She hadn’t no more’n landed at Hickory Top be- 
fore she goes to the ’phone, and for the next half 
hour she’s busy on a long distance call. When she 
joins us at dinner she looks happy and smilin’ once 
more. 

“Well, I’m glad to say it’s all settled,” says she. 
“I’m sailing next Thursday.” 

“Not for Algiers?” says Pinckney. 

She nods. “I had quite a talk with the French 
consul in New York,” says she, “and he thinks that 
the desert tribes are almost under control. At least, 
he can assure me of military protection if I wish to 
occupy my villa again. And I certainly do. I shall 
be in it in less than three weeks, and you’ve no idea 
how relieved and safe I shall feel.” 

Pinckney glances at me and shakes his head 
gloomy. But I notice he chirps up later on. “At 
least,” he confides to me, “I shall no longer feel 
responsible. A complex such as that would have 
baffled Freud himself.” 


76 MEET ’EM WITH SHOETY McCABE 


“ That’s the old guy who invented this dope about 
twisted minds, eh?” says I. 

Pinckney says it is. “You should read the book, 
Shorty,” he adds. 

“No thanks,” says I. “Folks look odd enough 
to me as it is, without my judgin’ ’em accordin’ to 
somebody’s mince-pie dream. I might get the idea 
you had one of them complex things, too. ’ ’ 

“Oh, I say now!” says Pinckney, lookin’ shocked. 


VI 


LOOKING ON AT A TIE 

I T was a sporty thing to do, I’ll say. You gotta 
hand him that much. Why, I might not have 
had any better sense than to have told young 
Bedford Ames I would, right off the bat. As it is, I 
was there with the cagey play. I starts stallin’ 
him off. 

“ Thanks, Bedford/ ’ says I. “ Mighty decent of 
you, and all that sort of thing; but honest now, you 
don’t want me — really.’ ’ 

He’s a quiet spoken young gent, you know; but 
what he says always comes across straight, right 
over the middle of the plate. “If I didn’t, Shorty, 
I shouldn’t be asking you,” says he. “Come, why 
shouldn’t you?” 

“That ain’t so easy to tell,” says I. “But I have 
a hunch I shouldn’t, and I’m playin’ the hunch.” 

Young Mr. Ames smiles and shakes his head. 
“Too thin, Shorty. You must find a better alibi 
than that before I let you off.” 

“Listen, Bedford,” says I. “There was a time 
when I kind of took pride in being one of these I’ll- 
try-anything-once birds. Used to shoot it on all 
occasions, until finally some smart guy came back 
at me with: ‘How about broiled crow?’ And I’ve 
77 


78 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


been off that bright little sayin’ ever since.” 

Bedford grins. “But this is hardly a parallel 
case, Shorty,” he goes on. 

“Maybe not,” says I. “And I’ll admit I’ve let 
myself in for some odd acts in my day. Once I 
helped play dentist to a tame elephant with a tooth- 
ache. Another time I went with a friend to meet 
a steamer when he’d had word that a chum of his 
had died abroad and had left a pair of something 
named Jack and Jill to be shipped to him. His 
guess was polo ponies, but they turned out to be 
a pair of six-year-old twins. I’ve refereed boxin’ 
bouts and umpired ball games. I’ve served two 
terms as chairman of the house committee out at 
our Yacht and Country Club. And once I was 
judge at a baby show. But up to date I’ve ducked 
being an usher at a church weddin’. Say, think 
it over, Bedford. That would read nice in the ac- 
counts next day: ‘The ushers were Percy Stuy- 
vesant, Oggie Vandyke, Reginald Twombley — 
and Professor Shorty McCabe V Eh? Now, 
wouldn’t it?” 

That line of argument don’t get anywhere with 
Bedford at all. He ain’t gettin’ married, he says, 
just to make an item for the society column, and 
he don’t give a whoop what the papers print about 
it, or don’t print. 

“You know why I’m asking you, Shorty,” says 
he. “If it hadn’t been for what you did, Dixie and 

I might not have Well, I’d be a poor prune not 

to want you in on the wedding, wouldn’t I?” 

I expect I was tellin’ you about Bedford and the 


LOOKING ON AT A TIE 


79 


little queen from Kentucky whose Aunt Alicia was 
so sore on him when he first came to Rockhurst be- 
cause he’d inherited a chair factory in Vermont and 
had failed to have his pedigree printed on his callin’ 
cards. And then, when him and Dixie Patten had 
fallen for each other, Bedford remembers this great- 
great-grandfather by the name of Ammi Ruhamah, 
whose monicker he’d promised to wish onto his son, 
if he ever had one. Which was where he gives me 
the distress signal and I helps him out by gettin’ 
the facts before Aunt Alicia, includin’ the history 
stuff and a sketch of the family coat-of-arms. 
Course, Bedford was an easy winner after that, 
and now it’s merely a case of goin’ through the 
Wilt-thou act. 

‘ ‘ I think I get your idea, Bedford, ’ ’ says I, 4 4 and 
it sure does you credit. But I’d like to have read 
into the record here and now that any little thing 
I might have done towards easin’ you two onto the 
matrimonial chute you were perfectly welcome to 
in advance. So let’s let it ride at that.” 

“ Dixie will be disappointed if you don’t accept,” 
says he. “ She’s counting on you, too.” 

4 ‘That makes it more complicated, then,” says I. 
“She stands pretty high with me, Dixie does. So 
I’ll tell you; I’ll have to talk with my friend, Pinck- 
ney. and if he thinks I can qualify for the part, I’ll 
let you know.” 

He ought to be a judge, Pinckney. That’s his 
long suit, church weddin ’s. I couldn ’t say how many 
times he’s figured as usher or best man at them 
affairs, but he’s been at it ever since I knew him, 


80 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


and what he don’t know about this hymen business 
shouldn’t he worth writin’ down. So when he drifts 
into the Physical Culture Studio next day I tackles 
him with the proposition. 

‘ ‘ Pinckney,” says I, “how about this weddin’ 
usher act! What are the lines!” 

“Why,” says he, givin’ me one of them cut-up 
glances of his, “I should say that the lines of an 
usher were cast in pleasant places, if I may quote 
from a volume that ” 

“Ah, ring the gong on that stuff,” says I. “I 
could read what Ham Mabie or Eller Wheeler or 
Robert Chambers has to say about bridal bees my- 
self. I’m tappin’ you for first hand information. 
What is it that an usher has to do at a weddin’!” 

“Well,” says Pinckney, “chiefly and principally 
he ushers the wedding guests into the pews.” 

“Oh, yes,” says I. “Shows ’em where to sit. 
Sounds simple enough.” 

“It is too,” says Pinckney, “provided he remem- 
bers that relatives and near friends of the groom 
are all to he placed on one side, those of the bride 
on the other, and doesn’t get ’em mixed up. So he 
must know in advance who’s who, for if he mistakes 
dear old Aunt Martha for a distant second cousin 
and wedges her in between a former nurse and the 
chauffeur’s wife, he hardly deserves the gold match 
box which he found under his plate at the groom’s 
farewell dinner.” 

I begins to scratch my ear at that. “You could 
make some bad breaks that way, couldn’t you!” 


LOOKING ON AT A TIE 81 

says I. “ Don’t have seat checks or anything like 
that ? ” 

“Hardly,” says Pinckney. “It is something like 
this: One sees a stout, purple-faced old lady ap- 
proaching, a little puffy from having forged her 
way through the crush in the vestibule. One recalls 
that this is Mrs. Maitland K. Pomeroy, widow of a 
former business partner of the bride’s father, and 
the one who sent that expensive thing from Tif- 
fany’s. So one advances, bows gracefully, turns to 
get on her left side, extends one ’s right arm, crooked, 
and murmurs: ‘Ah, Mrs. Pomeroy! May I show 
you to a seat?’ That is, if one doesn’t get it twisted 
on the tongue and ask ‘May I sew you to a 
sheet ? ’ as has been done, you know. ’ ’ 

“Say, that would be me,” says I. “I’d be sure 
to sew ’em to a sheet. Anything else an usher 
does?” 

“Why, that’s merely the beginning,” says Pinck- 
ney. “Having placed all the guests in the right 
pews, or the wrong ones, as the case may be, he 
usually joins in the bridal procession up the aisle, 
and groups himself picturesquely somewhere near 
the altar while the ceremony goes on.” 

“Huh!” says I. “Right up front, eh?” 

“Oh, no one looks at him,” says Pinckney, “un- 
less a potted palm tickles him behind the ear and 
he sneezes. Then, at the proper moment, he offers 
his arm to a bridesmaid and gets into step for the 
Recessional. After that all he has to do is to help 
escort out front-pew guests, tuck ’em into the limou- 
sines, and hurry to the house where the reception, if 


82 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


any, is to take place. And in the course of an hour 
or so, after he has exercised his immemorial rights 
of osculation ” 

“Eh?” I breaks in. “What’s that in low-brow 
English?” 

“He is supposed,” says Pinckney, “to kiss the 
bride and each of the bridesmaids at least once, and 
if he’s enterprising, he may ” 

“Check!” says I. “That’s enough. I can see 
where I’d be a poor performer up to that point; 
but say, when it came to pullin’ that De Wolf Hop- 
per stuff, I’d be so pink in the ears I’d look like I 
was carryin’ two port lights. It’s all off, Pinckney. 
I’ll send Bedford my regrets right away. I didn't 
dream there was all that to being a weddin’ usher. 
We live and learn, don’t we?” 

“Alas!” says Pinckney. “Some of us only live. 
You see, I have accepted.” 

“Oh, well,” says I, “you’re case hardened. You 
could drift down a line of sweet young things in 
pink tulle hats and peck ’em on their cheek dimples 
without workin’ up a flush; but as for me — say, 
let’s not talk about it.” 

And the first thing I did after getting home that 
evenin’ was to locate Bedford Ames. I finds he’s 
one of a dinner party bunch at the Purdy-Pells, so 
about 9 o’clock I wanders over there and crashes 
into the smokin’ room, where the men are hittin’ 
up their cigars and cigarettes. Among those pres- 
ent is Pinckney, as usual, and that sculptor friend 
of his, Garry Gale, from Boston. The two of ’em 
w 7 as chattin’ with Bedford, but I’m so anxious to 


LOOKING ON AT A TIE 


83 


scratch my entry on the usher list that I don ’t wait 
to get young Ames off in a corner. And when Garry 
hears about a church wedding he pricks up his ears 
at once. 

He’s what I’d call a back number cutie-boy, 
Garry. A chunky, round-faced party, with wavy 
front hair and big solemn eyes, and an air of hav- 
ing seen all there was worth seeing. Also he can 
talk this Back Bay Hahvahdese lingo, with no r’s 
and all the broad a’s stretched the limit, like he 
was born in Copley Square, which he almost was., 
Yet him and me always seem to find each other kind 
of entertainin’ when we get together. 

“ Quite right of you, Professor,’ ’ says he, when 
I’ve told Bedford he can count me out on the 
usherin’. 4 4 Don’t let them lure you into any such 
hazardous enterprise.” 

“Oh, I say, Garry!” protests Pinckney. “This 
is Mr. Ames’ show, you know.” 

4 4 If only it was ! ’ ’ says Garry. 4 4 Insidious fallacy. 
He is merely the helpless groom who has been snared 
in the loop of Fate, and soon will be struggling in 
the tangled web of matrimonial conventions.” 

That gets a chuckle out of Bedford. “I hadn’t 
thought of it in that way, you know,” says he. 
4 4 Rather had a notion I was engineering the affair 
myself.” 

4 4 Yes, they do, at first,” admits Garry. 4 4 Fancy 
themselves as conquering, compelling males. 4 Let 
us marry,’ they urge. I suppose you got that far 
all by yourself, didn’t you?” 

Bedford admits, modest, that he did. 


84 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


“And then,” goes on Garry, “I suppose you de- 
manded that it be a church wedding, eh?” 

“Why,” says Bedford, draggy, “I hardly remem- 
ber who suggested that detail. Perhaps Miss Pat- 
ten did, or her aunt. But it’s the regular thing to 
do, isn’t it?” 

“It is,” says Garry. “That’s the tragedy of it. 
The thing is unescapable, no more to be avoided 
than the dentist’s chair or paying one’s income 
tax.” 

“Do we infer,” asks Pinckney, “that you disap- 
prove of church weddings?” 

Garry spreads out his chubby palms and shrugs 
his shoulders. “If they could be conducted sanely, 
simply, I should say that a religious edifice was an 
appropriate place for what should be a sacred cere- 
mony,” says he. “But when they are staged as 
barbaric spectacles, when you load them down with 
the accumulated bad taste of generations — ugh ! 
One shudders at the thought.” 

Course, by that time I’m gawpin’ at him more 
or less jarred. “Say, Garry,” says I, “how do you 
get that way? You listen like a parlor Bolshevist 
that’s found a soap-box.” 

But Pinckney only laughs easy. ‘ i One may always 
depend upon Garry to shudder at the established 
order,” says he. “It is the studio mind declaring 
its pre-eminence over the common herd. But why 
so bitter at this particular rite, Garry? You haven’t 
been caught in the fowler’s snare, and I seem to 
recall more than one occasion when you have as- 
sisted at church weddings yourself. Besides, your 


LOOKING ON AT A TIE 


85 


gaudy generalities may be somewhat alarming to 
Mr. Ames, who is on the verge of matrimony, as 
one might say.” 

“To put it plain,” I adds, “let’s get down to 
brass tacks. If Bedford is standin’ on a trap door 
or anything, why not slip him the details? Just 
what’s wrong with gettin’ married in church?” 

Garry finishes his demi-tasse and lights a fresh 
cigarette. “So far as Mr. Ames is concerned,” 
says he, “it is too late for warnings. Besides, his 
keener senses are numbed by the sweet folly in his 
brain. He has been told so often what a lucky man 
he is that he can believe nothing else. As for Pinck- 
ney, he is a worshipper of conventions. He has a 
rubber-stamp soul. But you, Shorty, have an un- 
trammeled ego; you can see with a fresh eye.” 

“All right, all right!” says I. “You’re a great 
little describer, even if your words don ’t make sense. 
But havin’ got that off your chest, quit the fancy 
footwork and steam in a punch. Why does a church 
weddin’ give you chills down the spine?” 

“Simply because it’s apt to be such a ghastly 
affair,” says Garry. “And as commonly practiced, 
it can hardly be otherwise. Look, you, Professor: 
Two simple-minded, inexperienced young people 
decide to be married. They set a date, a month off, 
perhaps two. The invitations go out. The die is 
cast. They have committed themselves into the 
hands of capricious Fate. For, once having named 
the day, there is no changing. Such of the invited 
guests as choose to come will be there. Probably 
the church will be packed. The show must go on. 


86 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


“But just try for yourself sometime what it means 
to say that at 3 P. M. on the second Tuesday of 
next month you will he at a certain place, fit and 
ready and looking your best. You might, and you 
might not. In the case of other semi-public affairs, 
custom is not so inflexible. The condemned crim- 
inal, for example, may get a stay at the last moment. 
But if he doesn’t, he has no worry as to whether or 
not he will be on hand. He’s sure to be there. And 
he can depend on the sheriff, too. Neither priest 
nor turnkey will fail him. He knows that the thing 
will go off smoothly, without a hitch. Isn ’t that so ? ” 

“I couldn’t deny it,” says I. “I’ve been married 
oftener’n I’ve been hanged, by once.” 

“And now,” goes on Garry, “consider a wedding 
party. You have perhaps a dozen persons whose 
presence is vitally necessary; the two principals, 
the minister, the best man, the maid of honor, 
bridesmaids and ushers. The clock hands point to 
two minutes of the appointed hour. The organist 
has begun the prelude. The people in the packed 
pews whisper and crane their necks to look at the 
doors. Why? Because they are conscious that a 
dramatic climax has arrived. They feel the thrill 
of uncertainty. Will the show go on as scheduled? 
It is time. The hour is being boomed out on the 
big bell in the steeple. A minute has gone past, 
nearly two. 

“Can anything have happened to the bride? Has 
she fainted, perhaps; or can’t the modiste get her 
veil to hang right? Or is it the groom who causes 
the delay? Buzz-buzz! go the tongues of the gos- 


LOOKING ON AT A TIE 


87 


sips. Maybe the best man missed his train. Or the 
boy from the florist’s got lost with the bridal 
bouquet.” 

“Say, I’ll be hanged if you ain’t makin me ner- 
vous!” I breaks in. “And look at Bedford. Why, 
he’s ready to paw with his front foot.” 

“Not as yet,” says Bedford. “Go on with the 
agony, Garry. With an imagination like that you 
ought to be a life insurance solicitor.” 

“But I’m not drawing on my imagination in the 
least,” insists Garry. “Any of these tragic things 
may occur, have occurred. Pinckney, you remember 
how Billy Dean almost forgot about the wedding 
license and was scorching back with it when he was 
arrested for speeding? And it was two hours before 
he could raise the cash bail, with several hundred 
people waiting in the church and the bride’s mother 
in hysterics. And how many times, I wonder, have 
the wedding rings been mislaid, packed in the going- 
away bags, or left on the car seat? I heard of one 
groom who was so fearful of making this mistake 
that he tucked a ring in either toe of his dress shoes, 
and had to sit down on the altar steps, in full view 
of everyone, and fish them out. 

“All silly tommyrot, of course, but very real 
tragedies. So are the little ills and ails that come 
unbidden at such times, listing not who they light 
on. I’ve seen a bride with the snuffles who wiped 
her red-tipped nose between every ‘ I wilt.’ I’ve 
seen them limp down the aisle, from a sprained 
ankle, acquired that very morning. And 'a groom 
with a perfectly outrageous boil on his neck. 


88 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


Couldn’t help it, poor things. The spectacle had 
been arranged. The show must go on. ’ ’ 

“You must admit, though, Garry,” puts in Pinck- 
ney, “that very often nothing of the kind happens; 
everyone shows up sound and well, and the show, as 
you call it, does go on.” 

“Even so,” says Garry, “then where are you? 
We will concede that at three minutes past the whole 
wedding party has been assembled in front of the 
church. Let’s hope it’s not raining. Here they 
come, dodging from the motor cars under the canopy 
and past the grinning mob of strangers gathered to 
catch a glimpse. Word has been passed to the or- 
ganist, who swings into the opening bars of the 
Wedding March. The procession moves. Anything 
joyous about it, or impressive, or even dignified? 
Try keeping step to the Wedding March, either of 
them, without doing a kind of top-heavy sway, com- 
plicated by spavin and in-growing toenails. Tum- 
tum-te-tum! In the usual slow time. March, eh? 
For a bow-legged sailor, staggering back to his ship 
after forty-eight hours of shore leave unwisely 
spent. . But not a tune that normal human beings 
should be asked to march to. Oh, if you can hold 
one foot in the air during two beats and still keep 
moving, you can hold the rhythm. But not other- 
wise. 

“Yet there they go; ushers, pretty bridesmaids, 
flower girl, and the blushing bride on the arm of a 
bewildered parent who is trying to look solemn and 
fatherly, but is filled with a vague protest at being 
dragged into this silly woman’s affair; all turn- 


LOOKING ON AT A TIE 


89 


tum-te-tuming as best they can, and being quite as 
graceful and stately about it as if walking over a 
ploughed field in the dark. 

“ Somehow or other, though, they arrive; and if 
they have luck, they group themselves without upset- 
ting any of the potted ferns. The minister begins. 
The rings are produced. The ‘ Who giveth’ question 
is asked, and as the bewildered father retires, let 
us watch to see if he trips on daughter’s train. No, 
he hops over it, which causes a fat girl in an aisle 
seat to snicker. All is well. That is, unless the 
anxious groom, who has been coached not to mumble 
his responses, goes to the other extreme and makes 
a college yell out of his ‘I wilt’s.’ 

‘ ‘So there you have it; the whole bizarre perform- 
ance, built up and elaborated by early Victorian 
females, abetted by a gown-wearing clergy, and 
handed on down to us with few changes. And yet 
we think that the Cingalese, who roll a perforated 
brass ball before the bridal party and wear flower 
chains around their necks, are a curious and be- 
nighted people. Bah ! ’ ’ 

“Gee!” says I, breathin’ deep, “I’m glad Mrs. 
McCabe ain’t a widow. How do you feel about it 
now, Bedford?” 

‘‘Why,” says he, grinnin’ brave, “I guiess if 
Dixie can go through with it, I can. But suppose 
you wanted to marry someone, Garry, how would 
you do it?” 

“Ah, I expect he’d hire a bank vault,” says I, 
“and pull it off at midnight.” 

“No,” says Garry. “I presume I should set my 


90 MEET ’EM WITH SHOETY McCABE 


teeth and do just as you’re going to do next 
Wednesday.” 

“Anyway,” says I, “you’ve thrown a scare into 
me, all right. No usherin’ in mine, Bedford. I’ll 
be sittin’ in a back seat grippin a bottle of smellin’ 
salts.” 

Course, it didn’t work out just that way. As it 
was, I come mighty near not gettin’ there at all. 
At the start everything looked fine, both Miss Pat- 
ten and Bedford havin’ escaped accidents, arrest 
and the whoopin’ cough. Also it was a swell day and 
everything sittin’ pretty. Pinckney had asked me 
to stick around at the hotel where Bedford was 
staying and see that the happy pair’s suit cases 
was stowed in their tourin’ car without being tam- 
pered with by any confetti comedians. I was right 
on the job, too, and it was about time for Bedford 
to get under way, when this Jimmy Langdon, his best 
man, comes rushin’ in, excited, with a kit bag in 
one hand. 

“For the love of soup, Bedford,” he gasps, “will 
you look what I’ve done!” 

“Eh?” says Bedford, grinnin’ nervous at him. 

“Left my blinkety-blinked frock coat at home!” 
announces Jimmy, starin’ simple. “Thought I’d 
packed it in the bag. Eemember having it in my 
hand, but just then I must have called up the florist, 
to see if he’d attended to everything, and left it out. 
Silly thing to do. And here I am, with nothing but 
this brown checked jacket to go with the wedding 
trousers and waistcoat. Look nice, wouldn’t it? 
Can’t be done. No. Gotta have a frock coat. 


LOOKING ON AT A TIE 91 

Where? Inside of three minutes. Oh, what a bone- 
head !” 

“Vain regrets,” says Pinckney. “Frock coats 
aren’t so rare. Whole city full of ’em. Shorty, 
get Mr. Langdon a frock coat, will you?” 

“Sure!” says I. 

Not that I’d located one, or thought I could. But 
it was the right thing to say. I dashes out into 
the corridor and just by luck a bell-hop was goin’. 
He had red hair, too, which is a good sign. 

“Hey, boy!” says I, grabbin’ him by the arm*. 
“Get me a frock coat, medium size.” 

“ Eh ? ” says he, starin ’ at me. ‘ ‘ Wh — when, sir ? ” 

“Right away,” says I. “Give you two- minutes. 
And here. Shoot that on the spotted bones tonight. ’ ’ 
And I slips him a five. 

“Yes, sir,” says he, tuckin’ it away. 

Would you believe it, he’s back within the time 
limit, breathless but a winner. He hands over a 
perfectly good frock coat. Looks to be about the 
right size, too. 

“Not that I’m curious,” says I, “but what guest 
did you rob, son?” 

“Ah, I ain’t takin’ that chance for a five,” says 
he. “It’s one I rented off’n the pastry cook for 
two bucks.” 

I didn’t tell that part when I produced the coat 
and helped the best man on with it, and he had no 
time to ask fool questions. But he was there in time 
to tum-te-tum down the aisle with the rest. 

“Wasn’t it a perfectly charming wedding?” says 


92 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


Mrs. McCabe on the way home. “And not a single 
hitch anywhere.” 

* ‘ Uh-huh ! ’ 9 says I. 1 1 Thanks to the pastry cook . 9 9 
And I expect she still thinks I was talkin’ about 
the lady fingers served with the ice cream. 


VII 


SULLY PLAYS A HUNCH 

C HIEFLY this was little Sully ’s affair. How 
it would have turned out if I hadn’t happened 
to be home that Saturday afternoon I ain’t 
tried to figure, but I expect he’d have come through 
somehow. Not just because he’s Sullivan McCabe. 
Not altogether, although I will admit that helps 
some. But being a ’leven-year-old himself, and the 
other youngster about that age, too, they seemed to 
sort of understand each other, right off the reel, in 
spite of their different bringin’ up and all the rest 
of it. 

As Pinckney puts it, after hearin’ the tale: “Ah, 
yes, Shorty; another instance where youth speaks 
to youth while added years stand dumbly by.” 

“Ah, patootie-ootie!” says I. “Didn’t I do most 
of the talkiij’ myself! Course, though, it was Sully 
who did the sizin’ up.” 

Yet at the start he was the one who was most 
puzzled. In fact, I don’t know when I’ve seen little 
Sully with his brow furrowed up so deep as when 
he comes to me with this report of a boy out at the 
front gates who wants to swap some jewelry* for a 
gallon of something or other, he can’t quite make 
out what. 


93 


94 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


“Jewelry, eh?” says I. “That listens suspicious, 
son. What kind of jewelry?” 

“One of them things like Ma wears on her neck 
for dinner parties. You know, ’ 9 says Sully. 

. “String of pearls?” says I. 

“No, not them,” says Sully. “The flat one that 
hangs down, with the blue in the middle . 9 9 

“Oh! A turquoise lavalliere, eh?” says I. 

Sully nods. “Only this one’s different — big and 
sparkly, with tinny stuff all ’round,” says he. 

“You’re a great little describer, Sully,” says I. 
“But what is it you say he wants to trade this tin 
jewelry for?” 

‘ ‘ He don ’t wanna trade, ’ ’ corrects Sully. ‘ ‘Wants 
to leave it until he can come with the money to pay 
for a gallon of — well, the way he says it, it sounds 
like sonce.” 

“Sonce?” says I. “I don’t get you at all. 
Maybe you’d better try at the drug store down in 
the village.” 

“Aw, Pop!” protests Sully. “He’s all right, 
’cept he says things funny. And he wants to get 
away before somebody comes along that he don’t 
wanna see.” 

‘ ‘Well, well ! ’ ’ says I. ‘ ‘ Sounds interesting. A kid 
with fake jewelry who’s dodgin’ somebody. And 
you’re sure he’s quite all right, eh? How did he 
get here, anyway?” 

“Aw, he’s in one of them red-bug things,” says 
Sully. “You know, with the little motor wheel be- 
hind. You might come take a look, Pop.” 


SULLY PLAYS A HUNCH 95 

“Oh, very well,” says I. “But if I get bunked, 
remember it was you got me into this. ’ ’ 

And I will say that this youngster in the khaki 
ridin’ breeches and the leather coat ain’t just the 
specimen I expected to find. He’s a bit taller than 
Sully, but not so solid built. And where Sully ’s hair 
is red and wavy his is shiny, black and straight. He 
has big, black eyes, too. Nothing shifty about ’em, 
either. Also he’s a convincin’ talker, if you don’t 
notice what he’s sayin’ particular. I finds him 
standin’ by this little gas go-cart effect of his, 
glancin’ anxious down the road. 

“Well, son,” says I, “so you want a gallon of 
something, do you?” 

“If you please, sir,” says he, touchin’ his cap 
polite. 

And hanged if I could get it any nearer than Sully. 
It sure sounded like “sonce.” 

“I don’t follow you,” says I. “But maybe we 
can solve the mystery. What do you want it for?” 

“Why, for the motor, sir,” says he, tappin’ the 
little tank on the rear of the red-bug. 

“Oh! You mean gasoline, eh?” says I. 

“That’s it, sir,” says he. “Essence is the 
French, isn’t it? I’m always getting those two 
words mixed.” 

“You’re French, eh?” says I. 

“No, sir,” says he, “not exactly.” 

That got me starin’ at him curious. “As a gen- 
eral thing,” says I, “people are one thing or 
another. Course, there’s cases. Where do you 
come from?” 


96 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


“Just now, sir; or before !” says. he. 

“We’ll put it simpler than that,” says I. “Where 
were you born!” 

“Oh!” says he. “In Condor’s Nest.” 

“That’s a tank station I never heard of,” says I. 
“Is it in Maine, or Missouri; east or west!” 

“I — I don’t know, sir,” says he. “It’s up — up in 
the clouds.” 

“Oh, quite so, of course!” says I, glancin’ at him 
sharp. I’m being kidded all right, but he’s doing 
it skillful, with not so much as a cut-up flicker 
showin’ in them big serious eyes. “Well,” 1 goes 
on, “we’ll let it ride at that. You were born high 
if not high born. Maybe you could tell us your 
name, though.” 

He drops his chin at that. “I think I’d rather 
not, sir,” says he. 

“Suit yourself, son,” says I, “but that listens 
bad. As a rule we don’t have much to do with these 
John Doe parties,” and I starts to leave. 

“I’ll tell,” he announces prompt. “I hope you’ll 
believe me though, when I do. Sometimes they just 
laugh.” 

“I’ll do my best,” says I. “Shoot.” 

“It’s Hey-soo,” says he. 

“Eh!” says I, gawpin’. “Don’t sound like any 
monicker I ever heard of before. Hey-soo! Kind 
of a nickname, is it!” 

He says it ain’t. 

“Spell it, then,” says I. 

Which he does. “Hay-ay-s-oo-s,” is his version. 

“You must have a new alphabet, son,” says I. 


97 




SULLY PLAYS A HUNCH 

‘‘Mine ain’t got any letters like ‘hay’- and ‘o-o’ in 
it. Suppose you write it out,” and I hands him an 
envelope and a fountain pen. 

Sure, he would write it. And I gets the shock of 
my life when I reads what he’s printed out. So 
brace yourself. What he’s put down as his name is 
nothing less than J-e-s-u-s. And I expect I must 
have showed plain how jarred I was. 

“There!” says the youngster. “I was afraid 
you wouldn’t believe me. But that’s my first name. 
The rest is ” 

“Never mind any more,” I breaks in. “That’s 
about all I can stand at one dose. If you don’t 
mind we’ll skip the rest and get to the jewelry Sully 
says you want to pledge for a gallon of gas. Let’s 
have a look at this North Attleboro stuff.” 

So Heysoo — I’ll spell it that way if you don’t 
object — he digs into an inside pocket under the 
leather coat and produces what Sully calls a sparkly 
thing with tinny stuff all ’round. And what he 
hands over gets another gasp out of me. While I’m 
no gem expert I can tell a he-sized opal when I sees 
one. And this sure was a buster. Sparkly! Why, 
it’s a whole bunch of fireworks, a half dozen sun- 
sets frozen together, with a comet or so sprinkled 
in. Around the edge is a row of diamonds, maybe a 
dozen, blue white and matched perfect. The tinny 
stuff is a platinum setting, with a chain of the same. 
I couldn’t begin to guess what the thing was worth 
— a small fortune, anyway. 

I gives Heysoo the up and down suspicious. “I 


98 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


expect this is something you found in a prize pack- 
age, eh?” says I. 

“No, sir,” -says he. “I borrowed it from the 

drawer of mother’s dressing table to — to ” and 

there he stops to bite his upper lip. 

“I think I get you,” says I. “Borrow is the 
French word, eh? Pretty good at French, ain’t 
you ? ’ ’ 

“Not so good as I should be, sir,” says he, 
changin’ to another subject sort of relieved. “I am 
studying it hard, though, so I can talk to my father 
when he comes.” 

“Of course,” says I. “You and daddy don’t 
talk the same language, you having been born up 
in the air and him — I expect he’s French, eh?” 

“No, sir,” says Heysoo. “He talks French, 
though.” 

“Naturally,” says I. “Not being French, he 
would. Nice of you to make it so clear about your- 
self and your folks. Almost like knowin’ ’em. But 
let’s get back to the jewelry. You must want to 
get rid of this bad.” 

“Only for a day or so, sir,” says he. “Until I 
can come back for it.” 

“Exactly,” says I. “Don’t want it to be found 
on you when — let’s see, there’s somebody trailin’ 
along after you that you’d just as soon not meet, 
isn’t there?” 

“M. Flavelle,” says Heysoo. “He’s my French 
tutor. But if I could get the essence — the gasoline, 
I mean — I could get away before ” 


SULLY PLAYS A HUNCH 99 

“Nothing doing, son,” says I. “Sorry, but I can’t 
help yon ont. in a cute little scheme like this.” 

“Aw, Pop!” protests Sully. “What’s a gallon 
of gas?” 

“In this case,” says I, “it’s compoundin’ a felony. 
Maybe neither of you knows just what that is, 
but ” 

About then a truck that was passin ’ slows up and 
off jumps this narrow-eyed gent with the cheese pie 
complexion and the zippy black mustache. 

“Flavelle!” saysHeysoo, shruggin’ his shoulders. 

He’s a smooth, easy talkin’ party, Mr. Flavelle. 
He comes up to us smilin’ and showin’ his white 
teeth. “Ah, mon mauvais enfant!” says he. “You 
play the hide and seek with me, eh? But I find you. 
Now we shall go back. Come.” 

“No,” says Heysoo. “I — I’m staying with these 
people for awhile.” 

“But no,” says Flavelle. “You should come with 
me. Is it not so, Monsieur?” and he turns to me. 

“That’s my idea,” says I. “And the sooner the 
better.” 

“Ah! You hear?” says Flavelle, showin’ his teeth 
to Heysoo. 

But Sully is pullin ’ at my sleeve excited. 1 1 Listen, 
Pop,” he’s whisperin’. “He’s no good, this guy. 
And Heysoo, he’s all right. Let him stay and give 
the other one the run. Go on.” 

Course, I expect my play then was to send Sully 
off to the house and advise him stem to let me 
handle the affair my own way. But somehow I’ve 
never trained Sully that way. My mistake, maybe, 


100 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


but whenever I’ve seen that he really had different 
views from mine on a subject, he’s always had a 
chance to state ’em. We’ve run on them lines ever 
since he was a little chap. He ’d try to show me and 
then I’d try to show him, and if I did have to decide 
against him it would only be after the evidence was 
all in. Takes a little time, but it leaves ’em more 
satisfied. And now and then he’s won his case. So 
here I calls for particulars. 

“What makes you think he’s all right, Sully?” 
says I. 

“Well, I can tell by — by his eyes,” says Sully. 

“Huh!” says I. Then I turns to Mr. Flavelle. 
“Excuse the private confab,” says I, “but the 
youngster here don’t agree with us. He’s strong 
for chuckin’ you out and lettin’ young Heysoo stay.” 

Flavelle hunches his shoulders and spreads out 
his hands. “He is very wise boy, eh?” says he, 
sneerin ’. 

“Oh, most of us think we can pull the Solomon 
stuff,” says I. “It won’t do any harm for me to 
state the case, though. You see, Sully, it’s like this: 
Here we have this strange kid show up askin’ for a 
gallon of what he calls sonce. That gets us curious 
and we ask him where he comes from. He says ‘up 
in the clouds.’ He admits he ain’t French, but he’s 
leamin’ to talk it so he can converse with his father, 
who ain’t French, either. And when I press him 
for a name — well, you heard. I don’t know how you 
dope him out, but my guess is that your young 
friend is about as free and fancy a liar as I ever met. 
He’s got Ananias pushed through the ropes. 


SULLY PLAYS A HUNCH 


101 


“If that was all we might smile and pass it up. 
But that’s just the beginning. He’s got jewelry 
in his pocket that’s worth more’n this house and lot. 
Says he borrowed it off’m his mother’s dressin’ 
table and wants us to take care of it until he can 
shake oft somebody who’s chasin’ him. All of 
which strikes me as crooked. Then here comes Mr. 
Flavelle, his French teacher, to take him back home. 
Looks bad, Sully. ’ ’ 

Sully is scratchin’ his head. All of a sudden he 
marches up to young Heysoo and looks him square 
in the eye. “Say, did you mean to swipe the stuff: 
off your Ma?” he demands. 

“No,” says Heysoo, with his chin up and his 
eyes steady. 

“Criss-cross?” says Sully. 

Heysoo goes through the motion. 

“Wotcha got it for? Tell that,” insists Sully. 

“Why,” says Heysoo, “so M. Flavelle could 
show it to his sister.” 

“Eh?” says I, swingin’ on Flavelle. “What 
about that?” 

He shakes his head emphatic. “I do not even 
know that he has it,” says he. “I am much sur- 
prised.” 

“I hadn’t noticed that,” says I. 

“What was he chasin’ Heysoo for if he didn’t 
know he had it?” puts in Sully. 

“Good point,” says I. “Well, Flavelle, your 
turn.” 

“When a boy runs from home,” says he, “some- 
one must bring him back. So I come.” 


102 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


“O-o-o-oh, what a whopper!” says Heysoo. 
“Why he came in the little car with me — said if I’d 
take the jewel so his sister could see he’d let me 
cut the French lesson. And then when we didn’t 
find his sister for so long, and he kept telling me 
to go on further, and wanted me to hand it over to 
him — well, I got scared of him. I said I had to 
have a drink of soda and while he was in a drug 
store getting it I drove on as fast as I could until 
I ran out of gas.” 

“There!” says Sully. 

“Yes, I know, son,” says I. “Sounds kind of 
convincin’. But his record for handin’ out the truth 
and nothin’ but the truth ain’t good. How about 
this tale, Flavelle?” 

Up come his shoulders eloquent. “As you may 
know,” says he, “it is all what you call bunk. I 
have not ride in the little car at all — never. ’ ’ 

At that Sully grabs me by the sleeve and begins 
whisperin’ indignant. “Make him show his heels. 
Pop,” he demands. 

“Eh?” says I. “Show what?” 

“His rubber heels — on his shoes,” says Sully. 

“Lift up your right foot, Flavelle,” says I. 

“But — but this is foolish,” he protests. 

“Maybe,” says I, “but you better do it.” And 
he displays reluctant a rubber heel that has a clover- 
leaf design on it. 

“Now look at the foot-board on the car, Pop,” 
says Sully. “See?” 

Sure enough, there on the varnished wood is a 
dusty design of a clover leaf — two or three of ’em, 


SULLY PLAYS A HUNCH 


103 


where his heels have been braced. I paints it out to 
Flavelle and gives him the cold eye. 

“So you can hand out a little bunk yourself, can’t 
you?” says I. “What’s the idea?” 

That was where he turned haughty and demands 
indignant that the boy come with him. “What is he 
to you?” says Mr. Flavelle. “As for me, I have the 
right. I am of the family. If you shall in- 
terfere ” 

“Well, what then?” says I, gettin’ a little warm 
under the collar. 

“I must go to the officer of the police,” says 
Flavelle. 

“What do you say, Sully?” says I. “Shall we 
stick by your friend and run the risk, or turn him 
over to Frenchy?” 

Sully ain’t long decidin’. He takes Heysoo by 
one hand and pulls him over on our side, back 
of me. 

“Go to it, Flavelle,” says I. “We’ll take a 
chance. But, meanwhile I’m goin’ to try callin’ up 
the youngster’s mother, and if you care to stick 
around until ” 

“Bah!” says Flavelle, and goes off mutterin’. 

“Thank you, sir,” says Heysoo, steppin’ up 
manly and shakin ’ hands. ‘ ‘ I am glad he has gone. ’ ’ 

“And you ain’t afraid of what he’ll tell mother?” 
I asks. 

Heysoo says he ain’t. In fact, what he wants 
most is to get back home and tell her all about it 
himself, includin’ the borrowed jewel and Flavelle ’s 
sister. “Do you know,” says he, “I don’t believe 


104 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


there was any sister waiting. He had never said 
anything before about having a sister. Perhaps 
mother will know, though.” 

As it didn’t seem just right to turn him loose by 
himself, with Flavelle still hangin’ ’round, I gets 
out the roadster and we all three piles in, havin’ 
run the little red bug into our garage to be collected 
later. And it turns out that where Heysoo lives 
is on the old Pintard place, which is a whale of an 
estate up in the hills back of Portchester. It’s a 
run of a dozen miles or so and by the time we 
swings in between the big stone gates Sully and 
Heysoo has got pretty well acquainted. 

“You come some Saturday and stay over until 
Monday morning,” I hears Heysoo tellin’ him. 
“We’ll have lots of fun — tennis, or skating, if the 
lake is frozen, and then bathing in the salt water 
pool.” 

“ Eh ? ” says I. ‘ ‘ Salt water up here, a dozen miles 
from the Sound?” 

“Oh, yes, sir,” says he. 

So I has one more item to add to the list of queer 
tales Heysoo has sprung on us. We begins to get 
things straightened out as soon as Heysoo is handed 
over to mother. She ’s kind of a dashing looker, but 
sort of odd and foreign. Also she’s mighty glad to 
see the boy again. 

“We could find you nowhere,’ 2 says she. “And 
then when we discovered that Mr. Flavelle had dis- 
appeared, with all his luggage, we knew not what 
to think. He sent his trunk away secretly last 
night.” 


SULLY PLAYS A HUNCH 


105 


‘ ‘ Then there wasn’t any sister,” says Heysoo. 
“He was after this,” and he pulls out the jewelry. 

‘ ‘ What ! ’ 7 gasps mother. 4 ‘ The Boliver opal. The 
scoundrel! Oh, how much we have to thank you 
for, sir,” and she turns to me. 

“ Sully ’s idea mostly,” says I. “He spotted this 
Flavelle party from the first. But there’s two or 
three things I’m still puzzled about. Heysoo ’s 
name, for instance. I suppose there’s more to it.” 

“Oh, yes,” says she. “It is Jesus Pedro y Castro 
Tallamancha.” 

“That’s some name,” says I. “And he was 
telling us about being bom in the clouds. What 
about that?” 

“Above the clouds,” says Mrs. Tallamancha. 
“At Condor’s Nest. That’s in Equador, you know; 
our villa on the mountain.” 

“I see,” says I. “South America, ain’t it?” 

She nods. “But we have lived in the chateau in 
Champagne,” she goes on, “until the war. Then 
we came here, to wait. That was five years ago, 
and my boy has forgotten his Spanish, forgotten his 
French. Next month, too, his father comes from 
Paris to take us back. He knows the English but 
little, so what will he say if his son cannot speak 
with him? It is odd, is it not?” 

“Heysoo,” says I, stickin’ out my hand, “I take 
it all back. You were giving it to me straight on 
every count. I’ll even take your word for the salt 
water pool. Pumped up from the Atlantic, I 
expect.” 

“But no,” says mother. “One must put in the 


106 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


salt, tons of it. Quite extravagant, but it was so 
arranged by the former owner.” 

“Huh!” says I. “He must have owned a gold 
mine somewhere.” 

“I do not know,” says Mrs. Tallamancha. “They 
are good to have, gold mines. In Equador we have 
three.” 

I didn’t have much more to say after that. Some- 
how I was short of breath and I expect my eyes 
were bulged out. And when they fixes up a week- 
end visit from Sully for next Saturday I only nods. 

On the way back I squares myself with the son 
and heir. 4 4 Sully, ’ ’ says 1, 4 4 you had the right hunch 
that time, even if Heysoo did feed us some tough 
ones.” 

4 4 Aw, I could tell by his eyes,” says Sully. 

4 4 You ’re a good judge of eyes, I’ll say,” says I. 


VIII 


SEEING THINGS WITH SIS 

T HEY drift through the Studio door on some 
odd errands, as maybe I’ve hinted before, and 
because I can now and then size ’em up at 
first glance somewhere near accurate I’m always 
kiddin’ myself I’m a wizard at this seventh son 
stuff. But as this is one of my lucid moments I’ll 
let you in on the true dope. I ain’t anything such. 
Absolutely not. 

If I was I wouldn’t have made such a wild guess 
on Kenneth. I expect it was the wide eyeglass rib- 
bon trailin’ across his fancy vest into an upper 
pocket and the new pigskin document case under 
his left arm that gave me what I thought was a 
wise hunch. Anyway, the minute he trickles into 
the front office, looks around hesitatin’ and then 
edges over where I have my feet parked on the roll- 
top and an afternoon edition spread out comfortable,. 
I gives him the back-up signal. 

“No, son,” says I. “I ain’t subscribin’ to any 
atlas of the new map of Europe showin’ the loca- 
tion of all the important battlefields of the world’s 
war. You’re about the fifth young college hick 
that’s tried to wish that on me this week.” 

“I — I beg pardon sir,” says he, “but I only ” 

107 


108 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


“Yeauh, I know,” I breaks in. “All you want 
to do is show me a bunch of sample plates, display 
a line of cloth and half-leather dummy bindings, and 
feed me a forty-five minute speel on why every in- 
telligent citizen should sign on the dotted line. But 
I ain’t contractin’ to pay a dollar down and then 
get weekly visits from collectors all the rest of my 
life. I don’t give a hoot where the new republic 
of Czecho-Slovakia is located, how Poland is bounded 
on the west, if at all, or what they’re fumin’ about 
at Fiume, so if you’ll — Eh? Don’t tell me that’s a 
bill you’re fishin’ out, or a subpoena?” 

“Oh, no, sir,” says he, “but if you are Professor 
Shorty McCabe, why I ” 

“That’s me,” says I. “What you got there?” 

It’s just a note from one of my old reg’lars sayin’ 
that this will introduce Kenneth Wales, a nephew 
of his, who wants to ask a personal favor of me, 
but that I mustn’t let him bother me if I ain’t got 
the time. As it happens I’m just drillin’ around 
waitin’ until 7:15 when I’m to join Sadie at the 
Purdy-Pells for one of their stiff-necked dinners. 
That ain’t the worst of it, either. Sadie don’t know 
I’m wise, but Pinckney has tipped me off that 
afterward the Purdy-Pells are goin’ to spring a 
young lady vocalist on us, one of these freak 
warblers who goes out for altitude and hopes to 
break into grand opera in spite of the high visibility 
of her collar bones. And Gosh ! How I dread them 
seances. 

Also this young chap is a fair-haired, pink-and- 


SEEING THINGS WITH SIS 109 

white cheeked party with serious eyes and kind of 
a pleasant smile. 

“All right, Kenneth,” says I, still eyein’ the 
leather case a little suspicious. “Shoot.” 

“You see, sir,” says he, easin’ himself into a 
chair, “I am writing a play.” 

“Oh, yes,” says I. “And you thought that being 
only a few blocks from Belasco and the Shuberts’ 
offices I’d know ’em so intimate I could get it put 
on for you, eh!” 

“Not exactly,” says he. “It — it isn’t quite fin- 
ished. But in the seventh act ” 

“Eh!” says I. “What is this, a Chinese drama! 
How many acts, all told!” 

“Nine, sir, the way I’ve planned it,” says he. 
“I suppose some of them might be left out, though. 
But in the seventh act there’s a big fight scene in 
a mining camp, where the hero knocks out a lot of 
desperadoes — punches ’em, you know — and — I — 
well, I ’m not very well up on that sort of thing, and 
when I was talking to my uncle about it he sug- 
gested that perhaps you would be good enough to 
tell me if I’d got it right.” 

“I see,” says I. “Never done much sluggin’ 
yourself; eh, Kenneth!” 

“Hardly any, sir,” says he, his ears pinkin’ up, 
“except for one or two fights I had at prep school, 
and I didn’t come out very well in any of them, at 
that.” 

“No, I shouldn’t say you would,” says I. “But 
this play of yours, I take it, is kind of a wild west 
thriller, with Doug. Fairbanks stunts in it, and a 


110 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


free-for-all mix-up. You’ve spent some time in a 
mining camp, have you?” 

“Oh, no,” says Kenneth. “Except when I was 
at college I’ve always lived at — at home.” 

“Where’s home?” I asks. 

“Clover Leaf, N. Y.,” says he, droppin’ his chin 
foolish. “Silly name, isn’t it? Grandfather’s idea 
when he first started the cheese and butter factory. 
It’s our trade mark, you know. I always register 
from Binghamton, myself, but Clover Leaf is where 
we really live. That is, we did. I’m a New Yorker 
now. But Sis and Aunt May are still there.” 

“Sis?” says I. 

“That’s Betty, my kid sister,” says he. “She’s 
only 19, so after she finished boarding school I in- 
sisted that she stay in Clover Leaf, with Aunt May, 
to run the house. We’re all that’s left, you see, 
and as I’m the head of the family now, I have to tell 
her what’s what. Believe me, she needs it, too. 
You know what girls are?” 

“And you’ve come to New York to write the great 
American drama, have you?” says I, lookin’ him 
over curious. 

“It’s rather a joke, isn’t it, sir?” says he. “But 
I’m giving it a try. I can’t see why I shouldn’t. 
Anyway, I wasn ’t going to stick around Clover Leaf 
and pretend to run the cheese factory. It’s such a 
smelly, messy place. Besides, with Dad’s old super- 
intendent on the job, the business runs itself. Print 
butter and domestic Camembert cheese, you know. 
We turn out tons of it every month. That’s about 
all I know of the game, or care to. Of course, I 


SEEING THINGS WITH SIS 


111 


don’t set myself up as a dramatist yet. But I did 
a few skits that took rather well at college and I 
wanted to see if I couldn’t do something bigger.” 

“Couldn’t buy the right kind of ink in Clover 
Leaf I” I suggests. 

“It wasn’t that, sir,” says Kenneth. “But it’s 
such a dull hole. All you see are rubes and milk 
cans and village cut-ups. I needed to get into the 
literary and dramatic atmosphere, if you know what 
I mean; to be where men were doing big things in 
a big way, where I could feel that I was really part 
of it all.” 

I shakes my head. “That’s a little too deep for 
me,” says I. “Just where is all this going on? 
What’s the street number?” 

At which Kenneth admits that he ain’t actually 
up against the big stuff yet. He says he’s livin’ 
in a boardin’ house up on West Fifty-umpt Street. 
“You know the sort of thing,” he goes on. “Rather 
skimpy meals in a dingy basement dining room, 
wabbly furniture, and the boarders a vapid lot of 
bank clerks, lady floor walkers and a few girl art 
students from the Middle West, with some freaky 
old women. And the outlook from my two windows 
is absolutely uninteresting — just rows of flat-house 
windows, about as inspiring as looking at the side 
of a barn. But I don’t seem to mind. The duller 
and grubbier people are around me the easier I can 
picture the real men and women I’m writing about, 
the clearer I can see that wild free life out in the 
clean open spaces of the big West. Besides, I’m 
right here where I can see all the good plays ; that 


112 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


is, the ones that take. Some of them are pretty 
poor stuff, too, if you ask me. I’m just foolish 
enough to think I can turn out things almost as good 
when I get going. Now this ‘Rose of Lost River’ 
play which I’m finishing — it ought to go big. Espe- 
cially the fight scene, if I can get it right. It’s about 

a But to understand exactly how it comes in 

you ought to hear the whole thing. I brought it 
along and if you don’t mind I’ll begin at the start 
and read ” 

“Now, just a minute, Kenneth.” says I. as he’s 
unbucklin’ the pig-skin case. 

It wasn’t so easy stoppin’ him, but by suggestin’ 
that as it’s now past 5 o’clock and that maybe after 
dinner would be a better time, I staved him off. I 
promised to come around to his room and take the 
dose there, where we wouldn’t be disturbed and 
could have the whole evenin’ for it. Not that I’m 
strong for being read to by an amateur playsmith, 
as a rule, but this listened like a good alibi to give 
Sadie and duck the sing-fest. Also I figured I could 
shut Kenneth off when I’d got enough, and at the 
Purdy-Pell’s I’d simply have to squirm in my chair 
and take the gaff. 

“Oh, will you come?” says Kenneth, beamin’. 
“That’s bully of you, Professor.” 

So I had a nice comfortable feed at the chop house, 
after which I calls up Sadie to break the news. 
“Sorry, old girl,” says I, “but I got an important 
date. Uh-huh, Kenneth Wales, the big dramatist, 
wants me to help him work out a fight scene in his 
new play.” 


SEEING THINGS WITH SIS 113 

She falls for it, all right. “Why, how nice!” 
says she. 

“Ain't it?” says I. “May be a long session, too, 
so I'm liable to be home late. You fix it up for me 
with the Purdy-Pells.” 

And ten minutes later I'm strollin' along West 
Fifty-umpt street lookin' for Kenneth's number. 
It's in one of those old brownstone fronts that was 
probably some swell uptown mansion back in the 
days when Dick Croker was Tammany's big chief. 
There 'd been a whole row of 'em. But the fronts of 
some had been turned into stores — plumbers’ shops, 
hand laundries, real estate offices and the like — and 
the rest had “Room and Board” signs out, and 
across the way the apartment houses had crowded 
in, so the neighborhood was a good deal as Kenneth 
had described. I don't wonder he finds it dull. 

The sloppy-dressed darky girl that let me in says 
I'll find Mr. Wales in No. 19, third floor front, and 
I trails up, expectin' to discover Kenneth with a 
green eye-shade draped over his fair brow and both 
hands full of manuscript. But as I knocks on the 
door I hears what sounds like a domestic riot, with 
a girl's voice supplyin' the bulk of the debate. 

“Huh!” thinks I. “Have I got the wrong floor, 
or what?” 

But it's Kenneth himself who swings open the 
door and as I steps in he waves disgusted at this 
pert-faced young lady in the zippy little pheasant 
turban and remarks: “Will you look who's had 
the nerve to butt in on me, Professor? Sis!” 

“Oh, yes,” says I. “Pleased to meet you.” 


114 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


“ And you can bet I’m pleased to be here,” says 
Sis. 

“Well, I’m not pleased,” says Kenneth. “And 
what’s more, young lady, you can just trot yourself 
right back where you came from.” 

“Gr-r-r!” says Miss Betty, waggin’ her head. 
“Hear him growl, Professor. Doesn’t he think he’s 
savage, though? Grows wilder hour by hour. But 
I don’t care. I’m not going to stay shut up in that 
pokey old town with a deaf aunt who hooks rugs 
for excitement and thinks I ought to go in for tatting 
as a career.” 

“Would you mind telling me, Elizabeth Wales, 
just what you think you’re going to do here?” de- 
mands Kenneth. 

“Certainly I wouldn’t mind, Kenny, dear,” says 
Betty. “I’m going to be private secretary to the 
most promising young dramatist who ever left 
Clover Leaf. ’ ’ 

“ You ! ” says Kenneth. “ A lot of help you ’d be. ” 

“But you don’t know what I’ve been doing,” says 
Betty. * 4 Studying to be a typist. M-m-m-m ! I ’ve 
been down to the factory office three afternoons 
working at it, and I know where nearly all the letters 
are now. I’ve bought the darlingest little machine, 
too, and ” 

“Tommyrot!” breaks in Kenneth. “Where do 
you think you would live ? ’ ’ 

“Why, right here, Kenny,” says she. “I’ve 
rented the hall bedroom, just next to yours on this 
floor. And it’s going to be such fun, being right in 


SEEING THINGS WITH SIS 115 

New York, with everything going on and so much 
to see.” 

“Now isn’t that just like a fool girl?” demands 
Kenneth of me. “Don’t you know, Betty, that New 
York is no place for a simple young thing like you 
to live in? And as for seeing things — well, I guess 
you haven’t looked out of the windows.” 

“Just a glimpse or two,” says Betty, “and it’s 
perfectly fascinating — all those people across the 
way. I could watch them for days and days.” 

“Well, you’re not going to,” says Kenneth, de- 
cided. “You’re going to start for home first thing 
in the morning.” 

“Sha’n’t!” says Betty, runnin’ out her tongue. 

“Don’t be vulgar,” says Kenneth. “And any- 
way, I haven’t time to settle your case now. Pro- 
fessor McCabe has come to help me with my play.” 

“Oh, how exciting!” says Betty. “I want to 
hear it.” 

“It isn’t a play for young females to hear,” says 
Kenneth, “and I’m not going to have you listening 
and interrupting. Go to your hall bedroom until 
we’re through.” 

“Oh, Kenneth! Don’t be a beast,” she protests. 
“If you’ve written something so awful that you 
can’t read it before your own sister I’m ashamed 
of you. But I won’t listen. Let me stay and I’ll 
sit quietly there by the window and take in all the 
sights.” 

“Sights! Humph!” says Kenneth. “Very well. 
But not a word, mind you. I hope you don’t mind 
her being here, Professor?” 


116 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


“I’ll try to stand it,” says I, grinnin’ at Sis. 

Say, they had me interested, these two. I can’t 
say as much for the first twenty or thirty pages of 
“Rose of Lost River.” I expect it all meant some- 
thing or other, hut hearing it read that way I 
couldn’t seem to get the different characters un- 
tangled or sense what it’s all about. But just as 
I’m gettin’ fidgety there comes an outbreak from 
Sis. 

“Oh, I simply can’t stand it any longer without 
asking what on earth those people across the way 
are doing, ’ ’ says she. 

‘ ‘ Eh ? What people ¥ ’ ’ demands Kenneth. 

“Why, there on the fourth floor, where the shades 
are up,” says she. “Come here a moment, both of 
you. Now see! there’s a woman in some sort of a 
black dressing gown who is sitting back to us. 
And across the little table from her is a very stout 
woman with her hair down. They’re playing some 
sort of a card game, I think, but I can’t make out 
what it can be. See! The thin one’s dealing now. 
And after they sort their cards they throw some of 
them down and deal others, and then they pick 
something from the table corner and push it into 
the middle. They’ve been sitting there for hours 
and hours, ever since I first came. And the thin 
one is smoking cigarettes ” 

“Now didn’t I tell you, Betty?” says Kenneth. 
“New York is no place for an innocent young thing 
such as you. Come away from that window.” 

“Pooh!” says Betty. “I’m not such a greeny 
as you think. I’ve smoked cigarettes myself; three 


SEEING THINGS WITH SIS 


117 


of ’em, at boarding school. And I’ve played rnmmy. 
But I can’t think what that game is. Can you tell 
me, Professor?” 

“I should say it might be stud poker,” says I. 

“How thrilling!” says Betty. “But I didn’t 
know ladies played that; at least, not for hours and 
hours. ’ ’ 

“Depends some on what kind of ladies they are,” 
says I. 

“Oh, come!” says Kenneth. “Let’s get back to 
the fifth act. And for Heaven’s sake, Sis, watch 
some other windows.” 

Sis seems willin’ enough and it’s all of ten min- 
utes before she breaks loose again. 

“Please,” says she, “but there’s the funniest old 
man on the third floor who is doing the oddest 
things.” 

“Oh, shut up, Sis,” says Kenneth. 

* 6 But he is, ’ ’ she insists. ‘ ‘ He brings out a square 
box-thing with a handle in the top and a black cloth 
over it and sets it in a chair. Then he leans 
over it and talks to it. I can see his lips move. And 
pretty soon he takes that away and brings out 
another just like it and goes through the same per- 
formance.” 

“How absurd!” says Kenneth. “Talking into 
a box! I don’t believe it.” 

“Then just you come and watch, smarty,” says 
Betty. “There! He’s fetching a new one. See?” 

It’s a fact. He’s a dignified lookin’ gray-haired 
old boy, too, but his motions sure are batty. 

“What can he be doing, Professor?” asks Betty. 


118 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


‘ ‘ It ’s by me, ’ ’ says I. 

1 i Oh, I wish I knew, ’ ’ says she. 

* ‘ Well, yon can’t,” says Kenneth crisp. ‘ 4 Be- 
sides we’re busy and you promised not to interrupt. 
Now quit it or you’ll have to go to your room.” 

“I’ll be good,” says Betty, turnin’ again to the 
window. 

We’d got well into the sluggin’ scene of the big 
seventh act when she crashes in once more. 
“O-o-o-oh, Kenny! Professor!” she calls excited. 

“Darn!” says Kenneth, thro win’ down his man- 
uscript. “What now?” 

“The street is full of sheep,” she announces. 

‘ ‘ Sheep ? ’ ’ says he, lookin ’ at me inquirin ’. ‘ ‘ Why, 
they don’t have sheep in New York, do they?” 

“Never saw any except in Central Park,” says I. 

“But they’re here, hundreds of them,” says Betty. 
“I’ll open the window and you can hear them 
bleat.” 

Sure enough, we could. And believe me, it sounds 
weird. Baa-baa! You know that trembly double 
note they make, risin’ and failin’, like they was 
callin’ and answerin’ one another? But when you 
get hundreds of ’em at it at the same time it’s quite 
a chorus. We could hear it plain above the roar 
of the traffic. So once more we goes to the window. 
It’s about as odd a sight as I’ve seen in New York, 
too. They was packed in thick, from curb to curb, 
some even stragglin’ up on the sidewalk. Leadin’ 
the flock is a man with a lantern and behind, half 
way down the block, comes a covered dray bringin’ 
up the rear. 


SEEING THINGS WITH SIS 119 

“But what are they doing here? Where are they 
going?” Betty wants to know. 

“That’s another conundrum I give up,” says I. 

“Oh, I think this is the most interesting street!” 
says Betty. “It’s as good as watching a play. 
Really! Don’t you think it is, Professor?” 

“It hadn’t struck me that way before,” says I, 
“but with your eyes pickin’ out the excitin’ events. 
I don’t know but what it is.” 

“Well, I’ve been living right here for over three 
months,” says Kenneth, “and I’m sure I haven’t 
been thrilled by anything I’ve seen or ” 

Whatever else he was going to add is drowned 
out by a series of screams that comes from the side- 
walk almost under us. It’s the real high tragedy 
stuff, shrill and squawky, such as only the female 
voice can put over when registerin’ violent emo- 
tion. Course we all has to rush to the window again 
and stretch our necks out. Two doors west of us 
and down in an area we can make out a man and a 
woman millin’ around lively. She seems to be 
sailin’ into him tooth and nail and between squawks 
she’s callin’ him a lot of impolite names. Men and 
boys are runnin’ towards ’em from every quarter 
and all along the block windows are goin’ up, while 
the janitor from the apartments across the way has 
stepped out in the middle of the street and is blowin’ 
a police whistle frantic. 

“Oh, oh! Isn’t it awful?” says Betty, jumpin’ 
up and down panicky, but not missin’ a move of 
what’s gain’ on. 

Which is where Kenneth decides to do a little 


120 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


strong-arm work himself. “Now yon come right 
away from that window, Sis,” says he. “Oh, yes, 
you will, too. This minute.” And he grabs her by 
the shoulders. 

“Yeow!” yells Betty, strugglin’ to get loose. 
“Don’t you dare touch me, Kenneth. Don’t you 
dare. I want to see what’s going to ” 

“You’ve seen quite enough for one evening, young 
lady,” says Kenneth. “Along with you. No 
scratching now. You will, eh? I’ll fix you for 
that.” 

Betty remarks “Yeow” several times, but big 
brother drags her across the room, pushes her into 
a closet and locks the door. 

“There!” says he. “Now I guess you’ll be 
good.” 

“Beast!” says Betty, sort of muffled and sobby. 
“Please, Professor, tell me what’s happening down 
there.” 

1 6 Maybe Kenneth won ’t mind when it ’s all over, ’ ’ 
says I. 

But it’s like so many of them street mix-ups that 
don’t seem to begin anywhere or come to any par- 
ticular finish. A crowd collects that includes every- 
body in the neighborhood except a cop; the argu- 
ment gets wilder and more menacin’; and all of a 
sudden the man makes a break, dashes down the 
street and dives into a doorway. Pretty soon the 
woman trails off in the other direction, the spec- 
tators try to tell each other what it was all about, 
and inside of five minutes there’s nobody left but a 


SEEING THINGS WITH SIS 121 

couple of boys and the officious janitor who has 
pocketed his police whistle. 

“You may come out now,” says Kenneth, “if 
you'll go to your room and get into bed.” 

“But I can't sleep, so what's the use!” says 
Betty, emergin' from the closet with her hair 
mussed. “I want to know about all these things — 
the man talking into the box, what the sheep were 
doing here, and why that woman screamed. Can't 
anyone tell me? I must know.” 

“Listen to that, will you!” sighs Kenneth. “As 
though one could explain all the sights and sounds 
of New York!” 

“But these are real mysteries,” persists Betty. 
“It's tantalizing, like reading only the first chap- 
ters of continued stories and then leaving off. I 
should think you might find out something, or that 
Professor McCabe could ” 

“I'll try, Miss,” says I. “And I'll admit being a 
bit curious about some items myself. That janitor 
across the way looks like he was ready to spill in- 
formation if he was tackled right.” 

It was a good guess. He's one of these impor- 
tant, liver-colored New York darkies with a loose 
tongue, and after I've slipped him a half he recog- 
nizes me for a party he can confide in ad lib. And 
inside of 15 minutes I'm back in the third floor 
front with an earful. 

“Well?” demands Betty. “First about the old 
gentleman talking into the boxes?” 

“They wasn't boxes at all,” says I. “Bird 
cages.” 


122 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


“Oh, I say!” protests Kenneth. 

“Do be quiet,” says Betty. “Go on, Professor. 
Why does he talk into bird cages!” 

“Because he has young parrots in ’em,” says I. 
“That’s the way he teaches ’em to talk; says things 
over and over while they’re covered up at night. 
He’s a parrot professor. See? Buys ’em up cheap 
when they’re young and then when they’ve acquired 
a repertoire he sells ’em for big prices. He was at 
work with the freshman class when we saw him.” 

“Isn’t that odd!” says Betty. “But what about 
the sheep?” 

“Regular thing through this street,” says I. 
“Twice a week they drive ’em from the stock cars 
over to the East River slaughter houses. Fresh 
lamb chops for N]ew York, that’s all. Only as a 
rule they go later at night, when the traffic is light. ’ ’ 

“How simple!” says Betty. “And I suppose 
the woman who screamed was just a school teacher 
or somebody with a case of nerves?” 

“No,” says I. “The janitor thinks she’s a vau- 
deville actress who has been chucked into the dis- 
card by the other half of the sketch and had got 
loaded up with woe and booze substitutes until she 
just had to lay for the man in the case and express 
her feelin’s. She had an automatic in her fist, but 
didn’t know how to release all of the safety catches. 
Otherwise there might have been a real tragedy in 
the area.” 

“Only fancy!” says Betty. “And here Kenneth 
thinks this is a dull street and is writing of places 
and people he’s only read about! I don’t care what 


SEEING THINGS WITH SIS 


123 


lie says, I’m going to stay right here for ever so 
long and watch out of the window every night. So 
there !” > 

W T hen I left ’em they’d compromised on her' 
tryin’ it for a couple of weeks, providin’ she could 
qualify as a typist. 

“ You see,” says he, “I shall need someone to copy 
my play, if I can ever get it finished. ’ ’ 

‘ ‘When you do,” says I, “you ought to start a 
new one. You might call it 1 A Night on Fifty- 
umpt Street.’ ” 


IX 


GANGWAY FOR SUDIE BELLE 

I AIN’T accountin’ for Sudie Belle Jenks, or 
apologizin’ for her, or even tryin’ to list her 
in any class. I’m just admittin’ that she 
handed us two jolts, one going and one coming, 
which I claim is some record for a seventeen-year- 
old miss from Tuppertown, N. Y. 

Maybe you never heard of that classic burg. I 
expect I wouldn’t have either, if it hadn’t been for 
“ Sulphur Steve” Jenks. Course, that wasn’t the 
name on the brass plate down in front of his Broad 
street offices, but I understand it was the one he 
was best known by among the Stock Exchange 
crowd. You could easy guess why after you’d 
heard him express his emotions when he was well 
stirred up, for he was an easy and fluent cusser. 

I ain’t givin’ you that second handed, either. No, 
Sulphur Steve had been a reg’lar of mine here at 
the Physical Culture Studio long enough for me to 
know most of his little traits as well as some that 
wasn’t quite so well advertised. For instance, 
where he took his degree in profane language. It 
was out in the Black Hills drivin’ a six-mule supply 
team over roads that was mainly antelope trails and 
hadn’t been improved any when he met ’em. 

124 


GANGWAY FOR SUDIE BELLE 125 


So you see Mr. Jenks must have been some old- 
timer. He was. He told me once he’d put in 
twenty years followin’ new strikes of pay dirt. Not 
drivin ’ mules all the time. He graduated from that 
to a full-blown mining engineer and it wasn’t until 
he was over 50 that he came East to discover that 
the big money wasn’t in stakin’ claims out in the 
wilds, but by openin’ offices right here in New York 
and unloadin’ minin’ stocks on ambitious investors 
who wanted to get rich without workin ’ up any hand 
callouses. From that he got to be a general oper- 
ator; gold, silver, copper, anything dug out of the 
ground except potatoes and carrots ; until the 
youngster who ’d run away from home when he was 
16 with a total capital of $3.75 and a Johnathan 
Crook jackknife had come to be one of our promi- 
nent plutes, with a ten-room suite at the Perzazzer 
Hotel, three chins, his favorite table at Del’s, and 
a spotted liver that sent him to Shorty McCabe’s 
for medicine ball treatment about every so often. 

First off I used to think he was just a hard boiled 
old pirate who had a soul like a withered hickory 
nut and the disposition of a rogue elephant. As 
for his business ethics and private morals, the less 
said of them the better. But as we got better ac- 
quainted, I got wise to the fact that he wasn’t half 
as bad as he let on to be. I expect I must have said 
something of the kind once for I remember his get- 
tin’ confidential and tellin’ me I was more than 
half right. 

“In fact, Shorty,” says he, “I am almost a per- 


126 MEET ’EM WITH SHOBTY McCABE 


feet and an upright man, such as Job was. Only 
that side of my life I live vicariously.” 

“Eh?” says I, gawpin’ at him. 

i 1 Through my brother, the Hon. Matthew J enks, ’ ’ 
says he. “He has done the respectable and the re- 
ligious for both of us. I insisted on his starting 
that way, and I ’ve kept him at it. He ’s not going to 
lose by it in the end, either. I’ve fixed all that.” 

Seems Matthew was a couple of years younger 
and he was the one the old folks depended on when 
Steve cleared out. He didn’t want to stay, either. 
But Steve kept writin’ back to him how he must, 
and telllin’ what a rough time he was havin’, and 
now and then sendin’ him a money order to keep 
him cheered up. It was Steve who advised him to 
get a job in the bank, and urged him to join the 
church, and egged him on to marryin’ the girl he 
used to be sweet on himself. And when Steve made 
his first big stake almost his next move was to buy 
enough bank shares so he could put Matthew in as 
president. And all this without the two ever hav- 
ing seen each other for more’n forty years. But 
hardly a week went by without Steve writin’ to Matt 
and Matt’s writin’ to Steve. He had a picture of 
the Hon. Matthew on his desk, and carried around 
snap shots of his two nieces, one a young lady well 
along in the twenties, the other just a kid. 

“He’s even brought up a family for me, Shorty,” 
says Sulphur Steve to me. 

“I should think you’d want to run up there and 
see him some day?” I suggested once. 

“So I would,” says Steve, “if I could do it with- 


GANGWAY FOE SUDIE BELLE 


127 


out his seeing me. Besides, he would ask me to say 
the blessing at dinner. A fine object I’d be, Shorty, 
asking grace, wouldn’t I?” 

Yet in his way Stephen T. Jenks wasn’t such a 
bad old scout. Let’s see, must have been more’n a 
year ago that he passed out sudden in a Denver 
hotel while off on one of his business trips. And 
for awhile there I kind of missed him showin’ up at 
the Studio Tuesdays and Thursdays. But in a 
month or so — well, you know how it is. Maybe you 
remember readin’ of all the different things he left 
his pile to; colleges, homes of various kinds, hos- 
pitals, and funds for this and that. He sure scat- 
tered it around generous, when he let go. 

And among the items was one establishin’ a trust 
fund for the benefit of his brother, the Hon. Mat- 
thew Jenks. Not such a huge amount, two or three 
hundred thousand, I believe. He might have made 
it a million just as easy, but I expect he didn’t want 
to load him down with more’n he’d know how to 
use. Steve had hinted as much to me once. And 
for a country banker that would be some windfall. 

At the time I wondered what the Hon. Matthew 
would do when his share was handed over, but of 
course I had no way of hearing. And then here one 
day early last fall I came back from lunch to find 
this kind of oldish, countrified couple waitin’ in the 
front office. If I’d had any hint at all I might have 
guessed from the gray side whiskers, the black 
string tie, and the square-topped derby hat, that 
this was the banker brother from Tuppertown. As 
it was I took ’em for a couple of strays huntin’ for 


128 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY MoCABE 


the Mission Tract Society offices until he asks if 
I’m Professor McCabe. And when I admits I am 
he passes out his card and introduces Mrs. Jenks. 
She ’s a quiet spoken, shy actin ’ old girl with a nice 
pleasant face and a faded complexion. Also she’s 
costumed in a hack number black silk dress, and on 
top of her heavy pile of dark hair that’s just be- 
ginnin’ to streak up with gray is balanced a freaky 
string bonnet that looks like it had been wished on 
her at the village milliner’s spring mark-down about 
five seasons back. 

“ Startin’ out on a little tour, eh?” I suggests. 

‘ ‘ No,” says the Hon. Matthew. “ Mother and I 
are not fond of travel. In fact, this is our first visit 
to New York in a good many years. We came down 
to look up a school for our youngest daughter.” 

“Oh, yes,” says I, tryin’ to figure out just where 
I connected with a job of that kind. The Hon. Mat- 
thew don’t leave me guessin’ long, though. 

“My dear brother Stephen,” he goes on, “had 
often mentioned you in his letters; in very high 
terms, if I may say so; and presuming on that 
friendship we have ventured to consult you in this 
matter. True, I might have looked up some busi- 
ness acquaintances, but as we understood that you 
were in some way connected with educational work 

— er ” and he gazes around at the Studio wall 

decorations kind of •doubtful. 

“I get you,” says I. “The Professor part had 
you buffaloed. Well, my line is mainly teachin’ 
puffy parties how to steam in short jabs and train 


GANGWAY FOR SUDIE BELLE 


129 


down by workin’ the gym apparatus. No branches 
at young ladies’ boardin’ schools. Not as yet.” 

“Ah, I — I understand,” says the Hon. Matthew. 
“Somewhat stupid of me. Sorry to have troubled 
you, Professor. We will just have to look them 
up for ourselves as best we can.” 

They both looks sort of disappointed, too. I ex- 
pect that’s why I made my rash offer to do what I 
could to help. 

“Thank you,” says the Hon. Matthew. “Per- 
haps you could tell us how to find some of these 
nearby schools. Mother, you have the catalogues, 
haven’t you? What was the name of that one we 
thought sounded best?” 

At which Mother digs a bunch of booklets out of 
her shoppin’ bag and produced a thick one printed 
elaborate on ragged edge paper. “It was Haw- 
thorne Hall,” says she. 

“Why,” says I, “that’s just up in Connecticut, 
only twenty miles or so from where I live. Mrs. 
McCabe knows more or less about that joint. Say, 
suppose you run out to dinner with us tonight and 
talk it over with her?” 

Well, they protests that it’s a good deal to ask 
of strangers, but when I insists that any brother of 
Steve Jenks was no stranger to me, and plans to 
meet ’em at the 5:10 they agrees gratefully. And 
at dinner that evenin’ we come pretty near gettin’ 
the whole life hist’ry of the Jenkses. 

It wasn’t a thrillin’ tale. Fifty odd years in Tup- 
pertown, mostly scrubbin’ along on what the Hon. 
Matt, made as cashier of a little two by four bank. 


130 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


But they’d managed to buy a neat little cottage; 
and contribute regular to the church; and send Dor- 
othy, their oldest girl, to the State Normal School 
so she could be a teacher and help out some. And 
then when Steve had begun to boost in real earnest 
and Matthew had been made president of the bank, 
and been elected mayor of the town, things had 
started to come their way. And here a year ago 
they woke up to find themselves rich. They’d built 
one of the biggest and showiest houses in town, 
bought a fine new tourin’ car, captured two hired 
girls somewhere, and Dorothy had quit teachin’. It 
had all come a little late, but they were enjoyin’ it, 
just the same. 

“Only we are somewhat worried about Sudie 
Belle,” says Pa Jenks. 

“Who’s she?” says I. 

“She’s our baby girl,” says he. “Not really, 
you know. She was seventeen last month, but she 
still seems a baby to us; doesn’t she, Mother? You 
see, being ten years younger than Dorothy and com- 
ing to us when we were almost middle-aged, as you 
might say, we — we’ve made a good deal of her. 
Almost too much, perhaps. And now that we are 
able to give her so many things, indulge her whims 
and so on, I fear * that she is being a little spoiled. 
You understand. It is such a pleasure to give her 
what she wants. Very likely we are not wise in 
what we do give her. 

“And in Tuppertown she is not having the ad- 
vantages which she might have elsewhere. She’s 
not forming the right kind of acquaintances. Just 


GANGWAY FOR SUDIE BELLE 131 


the village girls and boys to go around with. Some 
of them are very nice young people, too, but I sup- 
pose they lack — er — certain refinements. So we 
have decided that it would be selfish and unjust to 
keep her with us any longer. She ought to go to 
some good school for young ladies, one of the very 
best. I am sure Stephen would have wished it. 
But where to find just the right school ” 

“Hawthorne Hall stands very high,” puts in 
Sadie. “Of course, it is rather a fashionable 
boarding school.” 

Mother Jenks nods approvin’. 

“And it's quite expensive,” adds Sadie. 

“I should not consider the cost,” says the Hon. 
Matthew. 

“Then we’ll drive up tomorrow and see Miss 
Spencer, the principal,” says Sadie. 

And after one peek at the gorgeous reception 
rooms of Hawthorne Hall, and a look at the suites 
with private bath, and discoverin’ that the dinin’ 
room was called “the refectory” and the place 
where the saddle horses were kept was “the mews,” 
the Jenkses decided unanimous that this was the 
place for Sudie Belle. Also to save ’em another 
trip down Sadie suggests that if they’ll put her on 
the train I’ll meet her, bring her out here for the 
night, and she’ll take her to Hawthorne Hall herself 
next day. She made a great hit with the Jenkses, 
Sadie did. 

“You are such a dear!” says Mother Jenks. 

“Nonsense!” says Sadie. “I’m just fond of hav- 
ing young people around. I shall have Sudie Belle 


132 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


down here as often as they will allow her to come. ’ ’ 

So that’s how I happened to be waitin’ at the 
Grand Central for a young miss who was to be 
carryin’ a green silk umbrella and a black leather 
suit-case with a big red J painted on one end. What 
I’d framed up in my mind was a perky little dame 
with village cut-up manners and probably roly-boly 
eyes. But this shy, overgrown youngster with her 
hair down her back and her eyes on her toes sure is 
something of a surprise. I expect the sudden shift 
from Tuppertown to a regular city had scared her 
about stiff. Anyway she acts awkward and out of 
place. She does admit that she’s Sudie Belle when 
I hails her, but that’s about all the conversation I 
was able to drag out of her on the way up. The 
most she would do was to glance around curious at 
some of the zippy dressed young ladies in the car 
and then down at her own plain cut blue serge. 
Once or twice I caught her tryin’ to tuck her thick 
hair braid out of sight and she snuggled down next 
to the window as if she was tryin’ to hide. 

Sadie almost gasps when she inspects her, and 
later on she gives me her confidential verdict. ‘ ‘ She 
certainly can’t go to Hawthorne Hall dressed like 
that,” says she. “I must send a night letter to 
her mother and get permission to outfit her prop- 
erly. ’ ’ 

She got it, and within a week Sudie Belle had 
almost blossomed out into a young lady. And in 
her new clothes she was quite a stunner to look 
at; that is, she would have been if she’d only held 
her chin up and quit doin’ the scared mouse act. 


GANGWAY FOR SUDIE BELLE 


133 


“I do hope she’ll learn something about style, if 
nothing more,” says Sadie, after she’s left her at 
the school. 

‘ 4 Ain’t that their long suit at Hawthorne Hall?” 
says I. 

4 4 But Sudie Belle seems so utterly countrified,” 
says Sadie, sighin’. 

Somehow she ain’t so strong for having her come 
down for the week-end as often as she’d planned. 
Besides, she finds that they don’t encourage that 
sort of thing at the school. And from the two or 
three brief notes Sudie Belle writes back Sadie de- 
cides that she must be gettin’ along all right. Any- 
way, she says she’s havin’ a perfectly corkin’ time. 

4 4 I ’m sure I hope so, ’ ’ says Sadie, and lets it ride 
at that. 

And the first thing we knew the Christmas holi- 
days was almost here and we hadn’t seen Sudie 
Belle once. 

“She must stop here for a night on her way 
home, ’ ’ says Sadie. 4 4 Then you can take her in and 
see that she gets on the right train. I almost dread 
to see her, though. I know her folks are going to 
be disappointed in what the school has done for 
her. ’ ’ 

So Sadie drives up to Hawthorne Hall, and when 
I comes home that night, seein’ the wardrobe trunk 
in the lower hall, I remembers about Sudie Belle. 

4 4 Well, what about the young lady?” I asks Sadie. 

“H-m-m-m!” says she, springin’ that peculiar 
twisty smile of hers. “I don’t know what to say. 


134 MEET 'EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


She'll be down for dinner soon and you may judge 
for yourself." 

But when this vision in blue tulle with the rhine- 
stone shoulder-straps and hardly anything else 
above the waistline floats in she had me guessin'. 
First off I thought maybe some movie star had 
trickled through the skylight out of an airplane and 
was goin' to ask the way to the Fort Lee studios. 
But then I sizes up her general build, and the big 
dark eyes and decides it must be Sudie Belle. But 
she's no more like the Sudie Belle I met at the train 
a little over three months ago than I am like an Eas- 
ter lily. The thick braid of hair that hung down 
her back has been done up and marcelled and puffed 
out over her ears in a style that must have come in 
only day before yesterday. Also it seems to have 
a new tint to it. Her complexion is a wonder, only 
there's a little more of it on the right cheek than 
on the left, but maybe the black beauty patch was 
meant to balance that. Altogether she's a good 
deal of a whiz. 

That shy, downcast trick with the eyes seems to 
have gone into the discard with the blue serge dress 
and the low-heeled shoes. She looks square at you 
now and don't hesitate to turn on the full candle- 
power of her lamps. And she's found her tongue. 

“Oh, there you are, Professor, you old dear!" 
says she, givin' me the rush tackle and grabbin' me 
by the shoulders. 

I think I'd been kissed, too, if Thadn't backed off 
hastily. “Well, well, Sudie!" says I, starin' at her. 
“What's the idea? Trainin' for the Follies?" 


GANGWAY FOR SUDIE BELLE 135 


“You darling old goose !” says she, chuckin’ me 
under the chin. “Isn’t he the silly though, Aunt 
Sadie!” 

Oh, yes, Sudie Belle has been goin’ some since we 
saw her last. And it was a lively brand of boardin’ 
school chatter she handed out durin’ the meal; 
mostly about their English riding instructor, 4 ‘who 
has just the darlingest mustache,” with here and 
there sketchy little bits about some of the “men” 
she’d met from the prep, school in the next town. 
We didn’t have to say much. Sudie Belle could 
do the talking for a whole tableful. I noticed Sadie 
watchin’ her puzzled for some time and then she 
asked. 

4 4 Tell me, child, what have you been doing to your 
eyebrows?” 

44 Why, I had them plucked, of course,” says Sudie 
Belle. 4 4 They were perfect frights before — too 
thick. I tried shaving them at first, but I made a 
mess of it; got otf too much and had to use a re- 
touching pencil for weeks. But the last time I was 
in town I bunked the chaperone and had the pluck- 
ing done. Next trip I splurged on a permanent 
wave. Hurts horribly, doesn’t it? But it’s such a 
comfort.” 

4 4 But — but what did Miss Spencer say to you 
when she saw it?” demands Sadie. 

4 4 Oh, she had one of her usual fits,” says Sudie 
Belle, shruggin’ her powdered shoulders careless, 
4 4 but that’s all it amounted to. All the other girls 
are doing it, you know; at least, all those in our 
bunch.” 


136 MEET 'EM WITH SHOKTY McCABE 


“Must be some torrid bunch,' ' says I, but not too 
loud. 

And before we doused the light that night Sadie 
and me had a confab over what was to be done. 

“We simply can't send her home like that," says 
Sadie, “without any explanation or warning." 

“That's so," says I. “Pa and Ma Jenks would 
get a jolt handed 'em. Why, she's almost a 
vamp. ' ' 

“And there's no telling how she would behave 
alone on the train, ' ' adds Sadie. ‘ ‘ She would have 
half the men turning their heads after her. Shorty, 
you'll just have to take her up, that's all, and tell 
them we were in no way responsible." 

“Ah, come!" says I. “Me land in Tuppertown 
with that?" 

Uh-huh! That was the decision. And while the 
street costume she appeared in wasn't quite so 
zippy as her dinner dress her get-up was smart 
enough so that we left a trail of stretched necks 
wherever we went. Seventeen! Why, she might 
have been in the twenties for all anybody could tell. 
The nearer we got to Tuppertown, too, the chillier 
I got below the ankles. 

“See here, Miss," says I as w^e pulled into the 
station, “what do you expect your ma's going to 
say when she sees you?" 

“Mother? Oh, pooh!" says Sudie Belle. 
“That'll be all right, all right." 

I was glad we hadn't wired ahead so they could 
take the shock at home and not in public. It was 
some gasp Mother let out, too, when she got her first 


GANGWAY FOR SUDIE BELLE 137 


glimpse. As for the Hon. Matthew, he gazes at 
her sort of stunned. But Sister Dorothy is the one 
who comes right out with what she thinks. 

“Why, Sudie Belle Jenks!” says she. “What- * 
ever have you been doing to yourself ?” 

“What do you think, Dorry dear?” says Sudie 
Belle. “IVe been catching up. Don’t you like the 
effect?” 

“No,” says Dorothy decided. “You — you look 
like an actress. Mother, I think you ought to make 
her go up and wash that paint off her face at once. ’ ’ 

“Paint?” says Ma Jenks. “Now, Dorothy!” 

She ain’t such a bad lookin’ girl, Sister Dorothy, 
only kind of old maidish and dowdy dressed. And 
for all she lets on to be shocked.’ so much she can’t 
seem to keep her eyes off Sudie Belle. While I’m 
tryin’ to think of the right thing to say the two 
girls sort of makes it up and the next thing I know 
they’ve disappeared upstairs together. I was still 
stallin’ around, half ah hour or so later, when they 
comes back. 

“Why, Dorothy!” exclaims Mother. 

It’s another mild case of transformation. She’s 
had her# hair puffed over her ears, and her lips 
touched up, and a drug store blush added to her 
cheeks, and hanged if she don ’t look almost as fresh 
and stunnin’ as Sudie Belle herself. 

“She just coaxed and teased until I let her do it,” 
says Dorothy, “I suppose I’m a sight.” 

“You’re not a frumpy old maid any more, at 
least,” says Sudie Belle. “And in two or three 
days I’ll have you fixed up so that on-and-off beau 


138 MEET 'EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


of yours, Billy Barnes, will either have to make up 
his mind whether he wants to marry you or not, or 
else he’ll find himself standing in line. So there!’’ 

“I must say,” admits Mother, after awhile, “that 
I’ve never seen either of you look so — so stylish. 
Don’t they, Matthew? But I’m sure I don’t know 
what the neighbors are going to say.” 

“Oh, hang the neighbors!” explodes the Hon. 
Matthew. 

That’s what it amounted to, a regular hand 
grenade chucked into the Jenks household. 

“Matthew!” gasps Mother. 

“I mean it,” says he. “And it’s about time I 
said it. All our lives we ’ve been living the way we 
thought would please the neighbors, because my job 
in the bank depended on it. We’ve been pious and 
respectable and commonplace. I’ve worn a black 
string tie, and side whiskers, because a banker 
should. And I’ve listened to dull sermons, and 
walked with a stiff neck, and never done any of the 
things I’d like to do. But why keep at it any 
longer? I’m going to get out of the bank, shave off 
my whiskers, wear a golf suit, and smoke cigars on 
the street. And my girls are going to dress the 
way they want to. If they can ’t do it here in Tup- 
pertown then we’ll move somewhere else. Right 
into New York, perhaps. We can if we wish. So 
why not?” 

“Bully for you, Dad!” says Sudie Belle. “I al- 
ways knew you could be a good sport if you only got 
a start. Come along! Let’s get out the touring 


GANGWAY FOR SUDIE BELLE 139 


car, you light up a big cigar, and we’ll drive around 
town and give the folks a treat. Eh?” 

The Hon. Matthew said it was a trade, or words 
to that effect. They took me to the station to catch 
the train back and I saw some of the open-faced 
expressions that Tuppertown indulged in. 

‘ 6 Well?” says Sadie, when I gets home. 

“It’s all right,” says I. “ Everything sittin’ 
pretty. Only I expect by this time next week Sudie 
Belle will either have corrupted Tuppertown or 
given it heart disease. She hadn’t been home half 
an hour before she was usin’ her lip stick on the old 
maid sister, and I shouldn’t wonder if she’d begun 
on mother by now. Lucky for the Hon. Matthew 
he’s decided to mow his side whiskers. Sudie might 
have insisted on givin’ ’em a henna treatment.” 


X 


THE CASE OF A PINK RED 

ND then, when things threaten to get dull, 



there’s always Pinckney. Trnst him. If he 


was dropped on the wrong side of the moon 
during a dark quarter I’ll bet he’d manage to start 
something. So here the other forenoon when he 
breezes into the Physical Culture Studio with that 
cut-up sparkle in his eyes I begin to look for quick 


action. 


“I say, Shorty,” says he, “who do you suppose 
I ran across on Fifth Avenue a moment ago?” 

“Ah, who am I that could guess a conundrum 
like that ? ’ ’ says I. ‘ ‘ Spill it. ” 

“Our old friend T. Baskin Wood,” says he. 

“What! Wood Basket, the pink Red!” says I. 

“Only he’s no longer a Red of any shade,” says 
he; “in fact, he’s rather colorless, opinions as well 
as complexion.” 

“Then it ain’t Woody,” says I. “That face tint 
of his might easy fade out, as he didn’t have much 
to lose; but them notions of his about what the 
masses ought to do to the classes was altogether 
too vivid to be washed out so soon.” 

“But it has been more than a year and a half 


140 


THE CASE OF A PINK RED 


141 


since we’ve seen him,” insists Pinckney. “I didn’t 
realize it has been so long myself until he told me. 
And do you know, Shorty, something mysterious 
must have happened to the chap. Never saw such 
a change.” 

“ Maybe the prohibition drought caught him with 
an empty cellar,” says I. 

No, Pinckney waves that aside. I ought to know 
Woody wasn’t that kind. And come to think of it, 
he wasn’t. Oh, he might go through the motions, 
hut if you watched him close you’d see him drown 
a finger of Scotch with half a bottle of ginger ale 
and make it last through an evenin’. 

More or less of a highbrow, Woody was; wrote 
pieces for the parlor Bolshevik weeklies, read queer 
books, and could explain by the hour where him and 
Debs or Spargo took different tracks. Pinckney 
used to tow him up to the Studio and get him goin’ 
just for the fun of bearin’ us debate. Course, I’d 
tell him straight how he had squirrels in the attic, 
and he’d try to show me where, as one of the com- 
mon people, I wasn’t runnin’ true to form when I 
believed all I read in the capitalistic press. Ac- 
cordin’ to him I ought to wear a red necktie and 
join some group of workers. 

“Like you, eh?” I’d say. “A hot worker, you 
are ! Why, all a 7 o ’clock whistle means to you is 
a signal to turn over for another nap.” 

At which Woody would insist that while he might 
have been born a social parasite he took no pride 
in being one and was out to change the system. Oh, 
he was earnest enough about whatever it was he 


142 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


thought he believed. He’d get real stirred up talk- 
ing about the exploited masses, the wage slaves, 
soulless corporations, and so on. And the way he’d 
enthuse over the honest toiler almost made you want 
to grab a pick and a dinner pail and hike for the 
nearest ditch. But I noticed that Woody didn’t 
work up any palm callouses himself. All he worked 
was his jaw. 

Then when the big war broke loose and when we 
got into it he seemed to take it mighty hard. He ’d 
sit around gloomy, shakin’ his head and mutterin’ 
harsh things about the government. He don’t ad- 
mit being a pacifist, but he claims we had no busi- 
ness mixin’ in this sad mess. He was sorry for our 
poor boys, sorry for the Belgians, sorry for the 
French, even sorry for the Germans. About the 
only people that looked good to him was the Rus- 
sians. Especially after they quit and started this 
soviet business. He was strong for that, Woody 
was. 

4 4 The ruddy dawn of a new civilization,” I re- 
member his callin’ it. 

4 4 Looks ruddy, all right, if all we hear is so,” 
says I. 

It was about then that Woody began pullin’ wires 
to get sent across with some safe and sane outfit 
of bombproof ers. He’d ducked the drafts on ac- 
count of being under weight and havin’ weak eyes, 
but the next thing we heard he’d broken into the 
Red Cross, got a job as some kind of field commis- 
sioner, and was about to start for Petrograd. 


THE CASE OF A PINK RED 143 

“Look out you don't get to trottin’ with Trotzky, 
Woody," was my partin' word to him. 

“I should feel much honored if I could," says he, 
and off he goes. 

Then he drops out of sight. The war is wound 
up after a fashion, the boys come stragglin' home, 
the peace convention scrap drags on, but still no 
sign of Woody. In fact, I'd 'most forgot all about 
him until Pinckney blows in with this bulletin. 

“What was he doin' over there so long?" I asks. 

“I couldn't get him to say," says Pinckney. 
“Which is one reason why I've come for you." 

“Eh?" says I, gawpin'. 

“As you may remember," goes on Pinckney, 
“Woody sadly underrates my mental equipment. 
He thinks I have too frivolous a mind to grasp such 
great and burning questions as why the worker 
works. He declines to waste his wisdom on me. 
Curiously enough he regards your low-grade intel- 
lect as a fallow field." 

“Say, how do you get that way?" says I. 
“Whaddye mean, low grade?" 

“Pardon the phrase," says Pinckney. “I might 
state it more subtly but with less exactness. At 
least you will admit that Woody used to talk quite 
freely to you. Perhaps he will now. Well, I've ar- 
ranged to have him take luncheon with me at the 
club. And I want you to come along, too. We may 
find out what has happened to him." 

“Thanks," says I, “but I don't think I've got 
time to " 


144 MEET ’EM WITH SHOBTY McCABE 


“I’ve ordered grilled pigs’ feet and stone crab 
salad,” says he. 

“Swifty!” says I, callin’ into the gym and grab- 
bin’ my hat. 1 ‘I ’m likely not to be back until 2 :30. ’ ’ 

Maybe I could have passed up the grilled pigs’ 
feet at a pinch, but stone crabs — M-m-m-m! They 
ship ’em up from Tampa about twice a month and 
this swell club of Pinckney’s is the only place I ever 
heard of their being served. A discovery of his, 
you might know. And say, when it comes to that 
kind of explorin’ he’s got Columbus lookin’ like a 
cop on a fixed post. Talk about broiled lobsters, 
this stone crab nourishment has the chorus girl’s de- 
light beat seven ways. So I takes Pinckney by the 
arm and starts him down the stairs before he can 
change his mind. Besides, I might have worked up 
a little curiosity about Woody myself. 

We finds him waitin’ for us in the big downstairs 
lounge, pacin’ up and down behind the row of easy 
chairs watchin’ the traffic nervous. I can’t see so 
much change in him at first glance. Maybe he’s a 
little thinner in the neck and face, but he never was 
much of a husk. And I notice that his hair has 
frosted up a bit above the ears. Still, it was be- 
ginnin’ to do that before he left, even if he is only 
in the late thirties. Only his eyes seemed differ- 
ent. They used to be the steady, piercin’ kind, 
but now they are starey and restless by turns. 

I will say, too, that he lets on to be kind of glad 
to see me. “Ah, McCabe!” says he. “Bully of 
you to come. How — how’s your punch?” 


THE CASE OF A PINK RED 145 

4 4 Oh, I expect I can still steam ’em in with either 
hand,” says I. 

4 4 Fortunate person!” says he. 44 I wish I could. 
After all, there is a sense of security in being able 
to do that sort of thing.” 

4 4 You don’t mean, Woody,” I goes on, 4 4 that 
you’re gettin’ ambitious to land a left hook on some- 
body’s jaw?” 

4 4 Not precisely,” says he, 4 4 but there are occa- 
sions when it would be a satisfaction to know that 
one could in — in an emergency.” 

Pinckney and I swaps glances. 

4 4 Oh, come, Woody,” puts in Pinckney. 4 4 Tell us 
all about it. You are not being followed by des- 
peradoes, or threatened, or anything of that sort, 
are you?” 

44 I suppose not,” says he. 4 4 Not now. At least, 
I trust I’m not.” 

4 4 Which implies that you have been, ’ ’ says Pinck- 
ney. 44 I say, we want to know what you got mixed 
up in abroad. Didn’t meet a dashing countess, did 
you ? ’ ’ 

Woody merely shrugs his shoulders bored. 

4 4 When did you trickle back?” I asks. 

4 4 Oh, three or four months ago,” says he. 4 4 I’ve 
been staying up at Jimmy Trevor’s camp in the 
Adirondacks — hunting a little, snow-shoeing, fish- 
ing some, resting a lot. I needed it. My — my 
nerves.” 

4 4 Worst thing you could do,” says Pinckney. 
4 4 The country always gives me a case of nerves if 
I stay there too long. Too many weird noises at 


146 MEET 'EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


night. The only place to really rest is in town. You 
can be comfortable here, and safe.” 

“Safe!” says Woody. “What an odd idea.” 

“Listen to him, Shorty!” says Pinckney. “Here 
he is, in one of the most substantial buildings in 
New York, shut in by thick stone walls, the win- 
dows guarded by steel grills, the entrances watched 
by keen-eyed, faithful servitors. Why, a stray cat 
couldn't get in without being seen, much less a 
strange human being. Our members are all men 
of substance and standing. Besides, we have 
within call thousands of policemen. Come, Woody, 
where could you find a safer spot?” 

Woody only shakes his head. “It was in a 
stronger building than this,” says he, “and one sur- 
rounded by an army of soldiers at that.” 

“Eh?” says I as he stops sudden. “What then? 
Did someone throw a scare into you by grabbin' 
you by the collar and askin' you the time of day in 
Russian?” 

“It was a trifle more menacing than that,” says 
he. “I was within a few minutes of being stood 
against a wall to face a firing squad.” 

“Where?” says I. 

“In the Fortress of St. Peter and Paul,” says 
Woody. “That is in Petrograd, you know. I had 
been sent to look up Kerensky. We wanted him to 
sign an order releasing several carloads of Red 
Cross supplies which had been seized by the revo- 
lutionary government. He was an elusive person 
to find, Kerensky, just about then. Someone said 
he had moved his offices to the Fortress. So I went 


THE CASE OF A PINK RED 


147 


there. I waited for forty-eight hours, being sent 
from one part of the great gloomy pile to the other, 
showing my papers every few minutes to ignorant 
moujiks, shunted about by insolent officials. The 
usual thing. All was confusion. Troops marching 
back and forth, wild-eyed secretaries running about, 
swaggering officers coming and going. 

“But with the Red Cross brassard on my sleeve 
and my American passport I felt safe enough. I 
had a permit signed by Kerensky himself. And 
they had said he was in the building. True, I had 
heard some firing going on outside, but that was 
common enough. And then, the next thing I knew, 
I was taken prisoner, herded in with a hundred 
others, shut in a great stone-walled room under- 
ground. I was told that the Kerensky government 
had fallen, that Kerensky had run away days be- 
fore, that the Reds held the city. 

“Even then I thought it would be merely a mat- 
ter of showing my papers and explaining who I was. 
But after another frightful day and night fifty of 
us were marched to an upper chamber and told that 
we were to be put on trial. So we were. But such 
a travesty. The three so-called judges were drunk 
and getting drunker. A few brutal questions and 
they would order a man led away. We knew what 
that meant. We could hear the rifles cracking in 
the court below. Hardly anyone was being let off:. 
My turn was coming. There were but four ahead 
of me. 

“One of the judges rolled off his chair, stupefied 
by vodka. We waited while a new one was sent in. 


148 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


He was nearly sober, but more evil-faced than the 
others. A fat, putty-colored face he had; small pig 
eyes with bags under them ; very bald as to his head, 
and with his left wrist bandaged. I shall never for- 
get how he looked as he glared at us. In three min- 
utes he had sentenced four human beings to death. 
Off hand, carelessly, as you would send away a 
beggar. 

“Then I was prodded forward. He snatched 
away my papers. ‘Ah, a cursed Kerenskyite ! ’ he 
growled in Russian. ‘I am an American,’ I told 
him. ‘An official of the Red Cross.’ ‘So?’ he 
grunted in English. ‘I need some first aid myself. 
What is good for the bite of a fair lady?’ and he 
pointed at his wrist. I suggested iodine. ‘Too 
common,’ says he. ‘This wound was made by the 
teeth of a countess.’ And then he roared as if he 
had made a grand joke. The other judges roused 
up and growled. ‘Away with the dog of a Keren- 
skyite!’ they urged. ‘Where are you from?’ asked 
the pig-eyed one. I told him New York. ‘So?’ he 
grunted. ‘Me, too. I’ve worked in New York.’ 
Then they wrangled together. The other two 
wanted to send me after the ones who had gone out 
to be stood against the wall. But Pig-eye was un- 
decided. ‘It might cause trouble,’ he said. ‘We 
should ask Lenine about it. Besides, there are 
plenty of others, and the soldiers of the squad com- 
plain that their guns are getting hot. Save him for 
another day. ’ So I was sent back into the big room. 
I was forgotten. For weeks I was there. We were 
fed occasionally on wretched food. At any moment 


THE CASE OF A PINK RED 


149 


I expected to be called out to face other judges. I 
don’t know why I wasn’t. But at last some of my 
brother officers came searching for me. I was iden- 
tified, rescued. They got me into a hospital. I was 
there a long time, months. And when I could walk 
they let me go. But there was no way of getting 
out of Petrograd. Hardly any Americans were 
left. The Red Cross headquarters had been moved 
to Moscow. Fighting was constant. You dodged 
out to buy food and dodged back again. An Eng- 
lish diplomatic agent gave me shelter, such as it 
was. We were raided frequently by drunken Reds. 
For a week our block was bombarded. I never knew 
why. But at last I had a chance to get into Sweden 
with some food smugglers. Finally I caught a 
steamer home. And here I am.” 

“Huh!” says I. “No wonder you got jumpy 
nerves, Woody. And I take it you saw enough Bol- 
shevik antics to last you for awhile, eh?” 

“Enough for a life time,” says Woody. “That’s 
why I feel nervous here. They’re in New York, 
you know; thousands of them.” 

“Absurd!” says Pinckney. “Newspaper talk. 
At least there are none in this club. You may count 
on that. So let’s have luncheon.” 

“Sure!” says I. “It’s always a soothin’ proc- 
ess, havin’ lunch on Pinckney. Best thing he does. 
And with a knife in one hand and a fork in the other 
you ought to feel fairly safe.” 

Woody works up a faint smile. “Probably I 
shall,” says he. 

I couldn’t see how he could help it, for somehow 


150 MEET 'EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


in this plute joint, with the heavy hangin's at the 
high windows, and the thick rugs on the floor, and 
the waiters movin' about soft and silent like they 
worked in oiled grooves, it seemed as if the rude 
common people was shut out complete. At sight 
of Pinckney the headwaiter acts almost human, tows 
us to a corner table, and snaps his finger for the 
bus boys to get busy. 

“Yes, sir," says he. “The hors d 'oeuvres are 
ready, the grilled pigs' feet next, and then the crab 
salad. Yes, sir." 

“And have Louis serve," adds Pinckney. “He 
knows how I want things." 

“Very well, sir. Louis!" says the headwaiter. 

Meanwhile Woody is busy measurin' out a mild 
shot of Scotch that somebody has found in Pinck- 
ney's locker, but the first thing I knows he has 
dropped a glass and at the crash I looks up to find 
him starin' bug-eyed at the waiter, who is handin' 
round the tray of caviar and pickled herring. For a 
second or so, too, the waiter stares back. Pinckney 
notices and glances from one to the other." 

“Beg pardon?" says Pinckney. “Anything 
wrong?" 

Woody don't say, but keeps on starin' blank. 

“The hors d 'oeuvres, sir," murmurs the waiter. 

“Oh! Oh, yes," says Woody. 

He don’t say anything more until the waiter has 
left. Then he reaches over, grips Pinckney's arm 
and whispers hoarse: “That's the man!" 

“What?" says Pinckney. “What man?" 


THE CASE OF A PINK RED 151 

“The pig-eyed one,” says Woody, “who was 
judge in the Fortress.” 

“Oh, I say!” says Pinckney. “Why, that’s my 
old standby, Louis.” 

“I couldn’t mistake that face,” insists Woody; 
“The small pop-eyes, the bald head, the putty com- 
plexion, the brutal jaw. He’s the very one.” 

“But, my dear chap,” protests Pinckney, “Louis 
has been my favorite waiter here in this club for 
ever so long. He’s been here for years, in fact; 
that is, on and off. ’ ’ 

“Ah!” says Woody. “He was off during the 
winter of 1917 and 1918, wasn’t he?” 

“I believe he was,” says Pinckney, “but I’m sure 
he couldn’t have been ” 

“I’m sure, though,” breaks in Woody. “He was 
in Petrograd, helping Lenine organize the red ter- 
ror. It was on his word that I was saved for an- 
other day.” 

“Utterly absurd, old man!” says Pinckney. 
“Why, we’ll ask him.” 

Woody ain’t strong for that, but before he can 
stop him Pinckney has sent for Louis and put it up 
to him flat. Don’t seem to fuss Louis a bit, either. 

“No,” says he, shakin’ his head and lookin’ stu- 
pid. “I haven’t been in Russia since I came away 
with my folks, when I was three. Been in New 
York all the time.” 

“And you don’t remember having seen me be- 
fore?” demanded Woody. 

“No,” says Louis, starin’ stupider than ever. 


152 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


“That’s all,” says Pinckney. Then, turnin’ to 
Woody, he chuckles: “There! You see?” 

“Ho you imagine,” says Woody, “that I could 
watch for half an hour the face of a man who was 
deciding whether or not he should send me out to 
be shot and then not know him two years later? 
Could you?” 

‘ ‘ S-s-s-sh ! ’ ’ says Pinckney. ‘ ‘ Here he comes. ’ ’ 

I couldn’t say just what it was, either; maybe 
the surly set of the waiter’s mouth or a look he gives 
Woody as he comes in. Anyway, I got my curios- 
ity way up, and as he passes me I reaches out cas- 
ual and gets a grip on his left wrist, pushin’ back 
the sleeve at the same time. And sure enough, 
there’s a scar. 

“Teeth marks, or I never saw ’em,” says I. 

“Yes, sir,” says Louis quick. “A dog did that.” 

“Must have had his front fangs filed off, then,” 
says I. “Look, Pinckney. Two even crescents. 
Was it a Countess, Louis, or were you just brag- 
gin’?” 

That seems to jar him a little, for he pulls his 
wrist away and covers up the scar. “ It was a dog, ’ ’ 
he mutters. 

“Bah!” says Woody. “Why deny it, man? You 
were one of Lenine’s judges in the Fortress. You’re 
a Bolshevik now, I’ll wager.” 

Louis only shakes his head and curls his upper 
lip surly. “The gentleman mistakes,” says he. “I 
am American citizen. See? I have my papers.” 

Yep. He springs ’em on us. 

“Had ’em right handy, didn’t you?” says I. 


THE CASE OF A PINK RED 153 

“And I expect you could prove an alibi in case any- 
body tried to deport you?” 

“I have witness, plenty,” says Louis, “that I 
live in New York all the time.” 

So what’s to be done? If you could catch him 
with a bomb in his hand or something like that you 
might induce the Department of Justice to take 
some action. Probably he would be slapped on the 
wrist and told “Naughty, naughty!” As it is, we 
just look at each other blank. Louis, he takes up 
the platter and steps around beside Woody. 

“Pigs’ feet, sir,” says he. “Very nice, sir.” 

“Oh, I suppose so,” says Woody, helpin’ himself 
liberal. “One might as well.” 

“Anyway,” says I, “he’s offerin’ a better propo- 
sition than standin’ you against a wall. ” 


XI 


HOBBS AND THE GOLD APPLES 

M UST have been six weeks or more back that 
Sadie calls after me, one mornin’ as I’m 
makin’ my usual dash for the 8:17 express, 
about gettin’ that dinin’ room clock. 

“I wish you’d stop in on your way to the sta- 
tion, Shorty,” says she, “and see what Hobbs is 
doing with it. He’s had it nearly a month.” 

“If you’ll make it on my way home tonight,” says 
I, “I’ll give him a try. Better plan to have din- 
ner a little late, too. You know Hobbs.” 

From which you might gather that Mr. Hobbs 
wasn’t a party who could be rushed. And that only 
half states the case. I’ve seen people who wasn’t 
much bothered by what they did with their time, 
from hoboes on a park bench to Johnnies in the club 
windows, but I don’t think I ever ran across one that 
spent it as free and reckless as T. Hobbs. Seemed 
to mean no more to him than water runnin’ over 
a dam. Didn’t do a bit of good to tell him you 
were in a hurry, had to catch a train, or get to a 
directors’ meetin’. When he started in on one of 
his long-winded spiels there was no stoppin’ him 
until he was through. 


154 


HOBBS AND THE GOLD APPLES 155 

Course, you might back through the door and 
leave him talking but somehow you didn’t just feel 
like doing that. Not to Tobias Hobbs. No. I 
can’t say just why, either. Unless maybe you knew 
that was something he wouldn’t do to you. And he 
was such a polite, gentle mannered gink that you’d 
feel sort of cheap pullin’ any rough stuff on him. 
You wouldn’t want to hurt his feelin’s. 

For Mr. T. Hobbs, jeweler, was an entirely dif- 
ferent proposition from most of what Mrs. Boomer- 
Day always spoke of as “the village tradespeople.” 
You couldn’t class him in with Schwartz, the 
butcher ; or Pratt & Miller, the grocers ; or P. Glutz, 
the plumber; or even Phillips, who ran the station- 
ery and book store and wore a shiny frock coat and 
was on the Board of Education. 

Not that Mr. Hobbs tried to put on any highbrow 
lugs or made any stabs at being a social favorite. 
He lived quiet and modest in a little tenement over 
the store, always dressed kind of shabby, and never 
tried to break into public affairs. Kind of a thin, 
spindly little man, T. Hobbs, with weak eyes helped 
out by a pair of thick spectacles, and a skimpy Van- 
dyke beard. 

But in his way he was sort of dignified, even when 
he had one of them single-barreled magnifyin’ 
glasses screwed into one eye as he inspected the in- 
side of a nickel alarm clock. He’d have almost as 
much to tell you, with the Ansonia relic as an ex- 
cuse, as he would if you’d brought in a thousand- 
dollar grandfather’s clock. Talk! Say, that was 
his strong suit. He was a converser from Converse, 


156 MEET 'EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


Oh, no trouble for him to find a topic. He was a 
self-starter. From a simple request to put a new 
crystal in your watch, or to fit you to a new front 
collar button, he’d branch out into a monologue on 
the Great Wall of China, who built it, and why, and 
what effect it had on the Chinese of today; or else 
he’d tell you how in Jamaica they cut down their 
banana trees every year and raised new ones that 
produced only a single bunch. 

Must have been a great reader, Mr. Hobbs, 
though I never could see where he found time. But 
I expect when he had nobody to talk to he went at 
it strong. Books and magazines about travels in 
foreign parts was his specialty, and he was better 
posted on how they gathered the rice crop in Japan 
than he was on what Long Island eggs was fetchin’ 
or why the coal strike petered out. He was always 
sayin’ how he’d like to take a trip to this place or 
that — Spain, or India, or Peru, or Madagascar, and 
why. He’d even go so far as to write for pamphlets 
of steamer trips and get rates on these ’round the 
world excursions. 

And yet in the half a dozen or more years I’ve 
lived out here in Rockhurst-on-the-Sound I never 
knew of his gettin’ as far away as Coney Island. 
Why, I don’t believe he went into town more’n two 
or three times a year. Near as I could figure Hobbs 
was born in Rockhurst, had always lived there, and 
probably always would. His father had opened a 
clock and watch garage way back in the early days 
when Rockhurst was a real country village on the 
old Post Road. So Tobiqs had been brought up in 


HOBBS AND THE GOLD APPLES 157 

the business. They say he could tinker up a time- 
piece, ’specially these old antiques with wooden 
works and ships painted on their faces. But you 
had to give him a month or so on every job and lis- 
ten to him about so long when you took in the work 
and when you finally got it away from him. 

Course, he had the reg’lar one-horse jeweler’s 
stock outfit — a line of plated cake baskets, gilt jewel 
boxes, cut glass vases, and so on. I expect he un- 
loaded some of it on the Dago population and the 
tenement folks. But the trade couldn’t have 
amounted to much. Then, too, he was always 
splurgin’ on odd side-lines that looked out-of-place 
in a jewelery store — gold fish in bowls, celluloid 
toilet articles, a new hand vacuum cleaner, patent 
dish drainers, potted plants. So you couldn’t tell, 
from lookin’ at his show window, what kind of a 
store it was. Not that Hobbs was ’specially enter- 
prisin’, or wanted to branch out, but the drummers 
found him easy. If they had patience enough to 
stick around and listen while he described a trip 
he’d like to take across the Andes mountains and 
down into the Argentine, or a cruise from Cairo up 
the Nile, they could sell him a bill of almost any 
kind of goods. One holiday season I remember 
findin’ him loaded up with a whole showcase full of 
mouth organs that I expect he never did get rid of. 

So you see his business couldn’t have called for 
any phony bookkeepin’ to conceal the excess profits. 
Yet he seemed to get along somehow. Even had the 
nerve to get married a second time after being a 
widower less’n a year. Sort of handed his car- 


158 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


riage trade a jolt by that move, Mr. Hobbs did, and 
to hear the women folks talk you’d think he’d 
queered himself for good. 

For the first Mrs. Tobias Hobbs was supposed to 
be quite a superior person, whatever they might 
mean by that. I’m givin’ you Mrs. Purdy-Pell’s 
description of her. I never thought much about 
her one way or the other. She was one of these 
large, blond females, that moved about kind of bil- 
lowy and majestic and got herself up in back num- 
ber frills. She was always tellin’ what a fine fam- 
ily she came from, how one of her sisters had mar- 
ried a bank president up in Connecticut and another 
was the wife of a leadin’ lawyer out in some Penn- 
sylvania town. 

Anyway, she played the lady as well as she could, 
apologizin’ for Tobias constant and for livin’ over 
the store. She sang for a while at the Presbyterian 
Church, and gave piano lessons. Also she had to 
have a maid to help her do the housework. So she 
was sort of included in most of the social doin’s, 
’specially any church affairs. Kind of on the 
fringe, as you might say. I judged that the women 
folks made it more or less of a fad to keep her in 
the swim, callin’ for her with their limousines, in- 
vitin’ her to teas and that sort of thing. Never in- 
cludin’ Tobias, of course. I heard a good deal of 
sympathy spilled for him when she passed on sud- 
den. They didn’t know how he was going to get 
along without her. 

But Mr. Hobbs seemed to bear up under the loss 
fairly well. Course, he wasn’t represented in so- 


HOBBS AND THE GOLD APPLES 159 


ciety any more, and he begun takin’ his meals at the 
Acme Cafe and doin’ his own bed makin’ and 
sweepin’. Didn’t get any thinner, though. Couldn’t 
have, I expect. But he didn’t complain any and 
went on puttin’ in odd side lines and plannin’ wild 
travel trips that he never took. 

And then one day it came out that he’d married 
this Bosie Millette person who’d been a waitress in 
the Acme. Some French Canadian girl who’d 
drifted down from Bridgeport where she’d been 
workin’ in a brass fact’ry. 

“How could he?” exclaims Mrs. Purdy-Pell. 

“Well, that’s the end of Hobbs,” announces Mrs. 
Boomer-Day. “He has found his proper level at 
last.” 

I expect he did lose some trade there for a while v 
In time though he got it back. It was too much of 
a nuisance to lug balky clocks clear into town. And 
while they didn’t forgive him exactly most of ’em 
overlooked his bad break. As for Hobbs, he ac- 
tually put on a few pounds. It developed that Rosie 
was a swell cook. At least, she was some scrubber. 
The dingy show window of the store was polished 
like plate glass and kept so, the floor lost its grimy 
coating of dirt, and the walls was cleaned up. Even 
Tobias showed the effects by keepin’ his hair and 
beard trimmed. 

Outside of that though we never got much of a 
line on the new Mrs. Hobbs. Oh, I got glimpses of 
her now and then when I’d drop in. She’d gener- 
ally be dustin’ or cleanin’ around, but she always 
beat it out back whenever any customers came. 


160 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


And Tobias never mentioned her, any more’n he 
ever did the first one. He had his own line of chat 
and stuck to it. 

So when I calls for the clock that afternoon I’m 
kind of surprised to find ’em both out front in- 
dulgin’ in some kind of debate. Rosie starts to 
leave, but when she sees who it is seems to think bet- 
ter of it and merely steps into the background. 

“Well, what about that dinin’ room clock, 
Hobbs?” says I. “Got it all made over like new?” 

“Ah, yes! The clock,” says Hobbs, strokin’ his 
beard thoughtful. “Let’s see. M-m-m-m. Yes, 
it’s all finished. New pinion, new balance wheel, 
and a thorough cleaning. Really ought to be regu- 
lated a little longer, but ” 

“I’ll take a chance on it,” says I, reachin’ across 
the counter. 

“If we were all willing to take a chance!” says 
Hobbs. “The places we could go to! I was just 
reading something to Mrs. Hobbs, a little poem by 
Stevenson. Probably you know it. It begins — 

“ *1 should like to rise and go 

Where the golden apples grow/ ” 

“And what I say,” breaks in Rosie unexpected, 
“is why don’t he?” 

“That’s the talk!” says I, joshin’. “Why don’t 
you, Hobbs?” 

‘ ‘ Eh ? ’ ’ says Hobbs, gawpin ’ from one to the other 
of us. 

“Listen, Mr. McCabe,” says she. “I’ve been 


HOBBS AND THE GOLD APPLES 161 


hearing him moon along like that for a year and a 
half, wanting to go here, wanting to go there. 
Didn’t pay much attention to it at first, but I ask 
you, can you get that all the time and keep still? 
I can’t. He’s got me so I want to go, too. And 
why not?” 

“But — but Rosie !” protests Hobbs, starin’ at her. 
“How could we? There — there’s the store.” 

“Bah, Mr. Hobbs!” says Rosie. “What’s the 
use of keeping this third rate junk shop open when 
we get hardly enough to live on out of it? And now 
with the rent raised and coal what it is, I don’t see 
the sense. If you want to travel as much as you 
say you do, why not start? I’m ready.” 

“There you are, Hobbs!” says I, chucklin’. 
“Your bluff is called. Go after the gold apples.” 

Tobias, he stares astonished through his thick 
panes. “But — but that was merely a — a poetic 
longing, my dear,” says he. “ ‘Where the golden 
apples grow.’ I’m sure I don’t know just what 
Stevenson meant by ” 

“I do,” says Rosie. “Oranges. They grow in 
California and Florida, don’t they? I’d like to 
go to either place. So let’s.” 

Hobbs shrugs his shoulders hopeless. “If we 
only could!” says he. 

“Well, we can,” says Rosie, her black eyes snap- 
pin’. “What’s more, we will.” 

“But — but how?” gasps Hobbs. 

“The way lots of other folks go,” says Rosie. 
“In a flivver. Yes, my brother-in-law went that 
way last winter; took his whole family and drove 


162 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


all^the way from Norwalk to Florida. Got a good 
job down there too, and drove back again last May. 
I know where we can get a flivver cheap. My uncle 
works in a garage in Bridgeport and he’ll buy one 
for us. I wrote him about it last week and he ’s got 
one all picked out. All we got to do is sell out here 
and start. There’s clock tinkering to be done in 
Florida as well as here, ain’t there? You could 
even do some on the way down.” 

“But — but I’ve never driven a car, Rosie,” pro- 
tests Hobbs. 

“I have,” says Rosie, “plenty of times. And you 
could learn. Anybody can run a flivver, and with 
your knack of tinkering you could keep it going.” 

“But travel is so expensive,” says Hobbs. “Stop- 
ping at hotels and all that. ’ ’ 

“Who wants to stop at hotels?” says Rosie. 
“Give me a frying pan and a coffee pot and I’ll get 
up better meals than you’d find in the average hotel 
dining-room. I’ve camped out with my brothers. 
I know how to make a stove out of two bricks. 
Whenever we got hungry we could pull up beside the 
road. You know my pancakes and sausages, and 
how I can scramble eggs. Well, I can do that out- 
doors just as well as I can in a kitchen, and things 
taste a heap better. You’ll see.” 

Them mild eyes of Hobbs begin to beam sort of 
excited. “That certainly sounds rather alluring, 
Rosie,” says he. “Camping by the roadside down 
through a dozen states. But — but where would we 
sleep?” 

“We could take a tent, couldn’t we?” asks Rosie. 


HOBBS AND THE GOLD APPLES 163 


“Or we might fix up the inside of the car so we 
could put cots across the seat or something. You’re 
so handy that way you ought to be able to do it.” 

“Why — why, I don’t know but I could,” says 
Tobias. 

And when I left with the clock under my arm 
the two of ’em were bent over the counter while he 
sketched out the ground plan of a flivver sleepin’ 
car. 

Course, I’d seen Hobbs enthusiastic over these 
mind travels of his too often to take much stock in 
his really startin’ anywhere. Maybe he’d talk 
about it for a week or so, and then switch to some- 
thing else. Yet it wasn’t more’n a few days later, 
as I was drivin’ past, that I caught a glimpse of an 
odd lookin’ affair in the yard back of the jewelry 
store. So I stops for a look; 

And sure enough I finds Hobbs in his shirt sleeves 
with a full outfit of carpenter’s tools and a lot of 
lumber and stuff piled up. He has taken the ton- 
neau off a second-hand flivver and is hard at work 
toenailin’ studding to a framework of two-by-fours 
that he’s bolted to the chassis. 

“What’s the idea?” says I. “Buildin’ a rollin’ 
bungalow?” 

“I suppose it will look something like that,” ad- 
mits Hobbs, “but I don’t know as I shall care. If 
we are to travel we might as well be comfortable. ’ ’ 

“Then you’re actually goin’ to start, are you?” 
says I. 

“Looks like it,” says he. “I’ve sold out the 


164 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


store. The new man takes possession next week. 
I think we ’ll be ready by then. ’ ’ 

“You bet we will,” says Rosie from the back 
steps. 

Say, she must have kept him at it steady, for I 
never knew Tobias to finish a job on time before, but 
when I drops around the followin’ Thursday blamed 
if I don’t find ’em ’most ready to pull out. 

“What do you think of our land cruiser?” asks 
Hobbs, wavin’ at the finished product. 

“It’s all of that,” says I. “Why, these private 
Pullman people have nothing on you, have they?” 

It’s a fact. What he’s erected on that flivver 
frame is a perfectly good house and lot. Uh-huh. 
He’s sheathed it up on the outside just like a reg’lar 
cottage, with a door and windows, and a slopin’ 
roof, and even a foldin’ back porch. 

“Take a look inside,” says Hobbs, lettin’ down 
some steps. 

Well, you wouldn’t believe you could get so much 
room as there is. In front, juttin’ out over the 
hood, is a sort of glassed-in bay window with one of 
the original seats fitted in for drivin’. Behind that 
is a combination bedroom, dinin’ room and kitchen, 
with plenty of headroom and the floor covered neat 
with oil-cloth. On either side are foldin’ bunks that 
can be let down at night, with wire springs and mat- 
tresses. Then there’s a table with hinged legs so 
it can be stowed away, a two-burner oil stove, lock- 
ers for dishes and supplies and extra clothes, an 
electric light in the ceilin’ run by storage batteries, 
and even a little wash stand in one corner. 


HOBBS AND THE GOLD APPLES 165 

“Where’s the bathtub and the refrigerator?” I 
asks. 

“Had to leave those out,” says Hobbs, “but I 
think we can manage. At least, we shall be inde- 
pendent of hotels. We plan to drive as far as we 
like every day, and then when we come to a good 
place in the country we shall stop, get our dinner, 
and spend the night. I’ve put in screens so that we 
shall not be bothered by mosquitoes when we get 
further South, and I figure that we can live in our 
car all winter, if necessary.” 

“And you expect to get to Florida in that?” 
says I. 

“We are going to start, anyway,” says Hobbs. 
“Rosie thinks we can get under way early Satur- 
day morning and be down in South Carolina by the 
last of next week. Then for where the golden ap- 
ples grow.” 

Honest, he acts like a kid startin’ for his first trip 
to the country. Looks about ten years younger, too. 

“Do you know, Shorty,” he goes on, “I’ve 
wanted to do something like this all my life, but 
somehow I never got around to it. Can’t say just 
why I haven’t, either, or how it happens I’m really 
going now.” 

# “I shouldn’t wonder,” says I, “but what Mrs. 
Hobbs might have had something to do with it. 
Anyway, I shall want to hear how you’re coming 
along. Send me a post-card now and then, will 
you?” 

He says he will, and he’s been keepin’ his word. 
The first bulletin comes from Washington, where 


166 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


they’d hung up for two or three days to take in the 
sights. Then came one from Richmond, and an- 
other from Charleston. 

“We are living a regular gypsy life,” Hobbs 
writes, “and enjoying every moment of it. Now 
and then we stop for a day while I repair a clock 
or two for some farmer. Am making more than 
expenses. No more shop drudgery for me. This 
is the life! Perhaps we shall go on and on.” 

“A flyin’ jeweler!” thinks I. “But who would 
have thought it of Tobias?” 

So here the other day when Sadie announces that 
the Purdy-Pells are thinking of going to Florida 
for the winter, if they can rent the right kind of a 
house, I has to chuckle. 

“That’s nothing,” says I. “The Hobbses are 
there. They took their house with ’em.” 


XII 


WHEN VICTOB GOT GOING 


OUKSE, when I comes back from lunch and 
finds Mr. and Mrs. Victor Annis waitin’ in 



the front office of the Physical Culture Studio, 
I suspicions that I’m to be called on to referee some 
new move in the career of this more or less inter- 
estin’ pair. 

4 4 Well, what now?” says I, turnin’ to the lady, 
who’s the head-liner of this particular domestic 
sketch team. 4 4 Got a scheme for making Victor 
vice-president of the bank or something?” 

But for the first time on record, so far as I’ve 
kept the statistics, there’s no answerin’ sparkle to 
them black eyes of hers. She’s usually such a 
perky little party, Mrs. Annis. Somehow she re- 
minds me of a spring robin, with her quick motions 
and the odd way she has of tiltin’ her head to one 
side when she talks. Built something like a robin, 
too, kind of plump in spots, and yet with slender 
lines here and there. 

Now though, all the snap and perkiness seems to 
have faded out. She sits there grippin’ one hand 
with the other and her chin down. 4 4 Oh, Professor 
McCabe!” she sighs hopeless. 44 I don’t know 
what’s fo become of us. Ask him about it.” 


167 


168 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


“Eh?” says I. “Listens tragic. Shoot it, Vic- 
tor.” 

As though he could be persuaded into doing any- 
thing impetuous. Not Victor Annis. He’s one of 
these rangy, long-geared parties that looks like he 
was put together with bam hinges. Enough frame- 
work was used up in constructin’ Victor to make two 
or three average men and if it was all well padded 
he’d weigh close to three hundred. But it ain’t. 
While he’s no human skeleton exactly he seems to be 
all joints and angles and his clothes hang on him as 
graceful as grain bags draped on a step ladder. He 
gets under way just as rapid as a heavy freight 
pullin’ out on wet rails and his mental processes 
ain’t much livelier. So I waits until Victor has 
worked up the proper momentum. 

“It’s — it’s all over with me I’m afraid, Shorty,” 
says he. “I — I’ve got to quit the bank.” 

“What’s the idea?” says I. “I thought you was 
gettin’ on fine there.” 

“It’s on account of my left lung,” says Victor. 
“I had trouble there once before, and lately — well, 
I’ve just been to a specialist. He says I may not 
last a year if I stick to banking. Says I must do 
outside work. Right off.” 

“Oh, well,” says I, “they can’t always tell. May 
not be as bad as he dopes it out. Still, you can’t 
take a chance, of course, and maybe you can strike 
something just as good outdoors.” 

“Do you know what that fool doctor wants him 
to do?” comes in Mrs. Annis. “Work in a meat 
market!” 


WHEN VICTOR GOT GOING 


169 


“I’ve always heard that was healthy,” says I, 
“ specially in one of these big open stands like they 
have downtown.” 

“But just think!” says she. “Victor coming 
down to that — cutting meat in a linen apron and 
straw cuffs! And after all I’ve done to get him 
where he is ! ” 

I nods. It’s a fact, as I happened to know. When 
she found Victor, here a couple of years back, he 
was stock room porter in a department store. He 
had the important job of openin’ packin’ cases and 
wheelin’ the stuff around where it was needed. And 
from all accounts he was satisfied to keep on doin’ 
that. 

I expect he’d still be there, too, if it hadn’t been 
for the birdlike young lady with the snappy black 
eyes who drifted down from somewhere in Nova 
Scotia, started as wrapper girl, and in less than six 
months had worked up to be first assistant head of 
the corset department. That’s where Mrs. McCabe 
got to know her and how I got rung in on this charge 
account romance. You see, Sadie begins tellin’ what 
a wonder this Miss Robinson is. Must have got an 
extra good fit or something. Besides she remem- 
bers Sadie for a whole six months, name and 
address and all, even to the brand of what-you- 
callums she wears, and in these days when most of 
the salesladies are so distant and haughty that 
makes a great hit. I take it they got real chummy. 

Anyway, Sadie seems to acquire the whole life 
hist’ry of Miss Robinson; how her folks were in the 
salt fish business up there, and the only openin’ she 


170 MEET 'EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


had was either to keep books in the warehouse or 
teach school; how she'd turned down both chances 
and made a break for New York with only enough 
left after paying her fare to stake her to a week's 
board; and how she'd jumped into the first place 
she found. 

Then later on Sadie heard about Victor. Seems 
Miss Robinson had discovered him in the stock room. 
First off it was chiefly because he was the only blue- 
jumpered hired hand around the shop who could be 
depended on to fetch up exactly what he was sent 
for the first time. He might not show so much speed 
as some of the others, but he was always right. 
Then when she found he came from Skowhegan, 
Maine, which was part way up to Nova Scotia, and 
that his favorite dish was tongues and sounds, and 
that he knew a lot of Evangeline by heart — well, I 
take it Miss Robinson just naturally started in to 
improve Victor's prospects the way she had her 
own. And the next thing she knew she'd fallen for 
them eyes of his. 

I must say we didn't notice 'em at first. Sadie’s 
report on him, after a glimpse she'd had at the 
store, was that he was plain-featured and awkward 
looking. But I decided that was puttin' it mild when 
Miss Robinson towed him around to the Studio to 
spring this proposition of hers about getting him 
into a bank. Plain! Why, that hand-hewn face of 
his would have had an Abe Lincoln statue lookin' 
like a life mask of Francis X. Bushman. It's a long, 
serious face, corrugated like a wash-board, with 
unexpected knobs and bunches on it, and set off by a 


WHEN VICTOR GOT GOING 


171 


pair of ears that gives him sort of an airplane effect. 
Also he has a wavy fore-lock of brownish hair that’s 
a reg’lar mane, something after the style of the one 
worn by Jim Barnes, the crack golfer. I looks him 
over, from his number eleven shoes up, and smothers 
a gasp. 

4 'Why a bank?” I asks. 

" Because it’s so genteel,” says Miss Robinson. 

"Has he had any experience in that line?” says I. 

"He was checker in a lumber yard for two years,” 
says Miss Robinson. "And he’s just finished a six 
months’ night school course in banking at the 
Y. M. C. A. I made him take that and I’ve been 
looking over his work. He does it beautifully. Not 
a mistake. And such neat figures.” 

"Yes, that might help some,” says I, "but ” 

Here I breaks off to take another doubtful glance 
at Victor. 

"You see,” goes on Miss Robinson, "if he can 
get to be a banker we are going to be married. 
Aren’t we, Vic.?” 

"We certainly are, Mollie,” says he, smilin’ gen- 
erous and beamin’. 

That’s when I begun takin’ notice of them 
friendly gray eyes of his. Say, I don’t know how 
he did it, but when he turned ’em loose on you, sort 
of rollin’ ’em timid and apologizin’, you couldn’t 
help but feel that here was somebody you could 
trust with anything you might have, from your 
watch to your kid sister. Just plain honest, them 
eyes was, the kind you read about. Never a shift or 
a flutter, but steady as signboards at a street cor- 


172 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


ner. And when that wide homely mouth of his un- 
reefed itself it produced the folksiest, most good- 
natured smile you’d want to meet. 

“Then that settles it,” says I. “Bank recruitin’ 
is some out of my line, but I’ll see what can be done 
among my friends.” 

As matter of fact, though, it was really Sadie and 
Mrs. Purdy-Pell who found the place for him, in 
an up-town branch of a bank that Purdy-Pell was 
director of. I understand they had some job shovin’ 
him in, too, for the cashier kicked like a steer and 
wanted to know why a freak like that should be 
wished on his staff. He must have stood for a lot 
of guyin’ from the others, but I expect he kept 
springin’ that folksy smile on ’em, and doin’ his 
work patient and accurate, and in no time at all 
he’d qualified. Then one day when nearly half the 
force was down with the flu he was told to sub in 
at the ladies’ window and from that on he was kept 
there. The women simply wouldn’t have anybody 
else wait on ’em but Mr. Annis. I suppose they’d 
never met a folksy bank clerk before and they were 
strong for him. Anyway, at the end of the year 
Victor was drawin’ down a good salary, as bank 
wages go, and Miss Robinson had chucked her job 
in the thingumbob department to become Mrs. 
Annis. 

Well, her next move is to come out to Rockhurst- 
on-the-Sound scoutin’ for a small cottage. As she 
explains to Sadie, now that Victor was a banker, 
she felt they ought to live like reg’lar persons, 
which you couldn’t do in a flat, you know. And 


WHEN VICTOR GOT GOING 


173 


here her luck still held, for she picks up a cute little 
stone affair right in amongst a lot of our swellest 
commuters. 

Almost before Sadie knew it, little Mrs. Annis had 
started to edge into the social doings of the neigh- 
borhood. Not that she tried to make any splurge on 
her own hook, or pulled any of the usual climber 
stunts, but she was such a cheerful, perky little 
party, and nodded so pleasant to everbody some- 
how she begun to be asked around. For one thing, 
the ladies found that she was more or less of a 
bridge whist shark. Where she could have picked 
up that butterfly trick in her busy young life was 
something of a mystery until she admitted to Sadie 
that she’d been taking a course of lessons from a 
professional in town, payin’ for ’em with expert 
corset advice that had turned an almost hopeless 
figure into a stylish stout. Also she’d read books 
on the subject and had spent hours and hours layin’ 
out dummy hands and playin’ ’em. 

See how she worked it? First she finds what it 
is most of the women are interested in, and then 
she goes after that one thing. Even that doesn ’t sat- 
isfy her, though. She discovers that a lot of evenin’ 
bridge parties are being held and there’s quite a 
scarcity of male partners. So Victor is put through 
a course of sprouts. By that time, too, Victor is 
willin’ to tackle almost anything she sics him onto. 
What if the extent of his previous card playin’ had 
been California Jack, or an occasional stab at Shoe- 
maker’s Loo? He had to learn what it meant when 
his partner doubled one no-trump, how to read a 


174 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


high-low discard, and the need of bidding to the 
score. I expect it took him more’n a week or so to 
sop up all the fine points, but he got there. 

What was the really big part of this act of Mrs. 
Annis’s was displayin’ Victor in public all dolled 
up in open front party clothes. I expect she did 
her best, and that’s sayin’ a good deal, but the 
effect was more or less surprisin’. Maybe you’ve 
seen men who just didn’t seem to be built for wearin’ 
a soup-and-fish outfit. Victor was like that. I re- 
member a circus act once where a clown led in a 
giraffe whose front end had been draped in a Tuxedo 
and hard-boiled shirt. Somehow I couldn’t think of 
anything else whenever I saw Victor Annis costumed 
for crashin’ into society. The coat sagged away 
from his long neck like a horse collar, his bony 
wrists stuck out from the sleeves, and the trousers 
legs hung in limp folds away from the yawnin’ 
cavern where his vest bulged out from his shirt 
bosom. Sort of gave you the idea that he was failin’ 
apart or something. And the resigned look of pa- 
tient distress on Victor’s rugged face made you al- 
most sure that the worst was about to happen. 

Still, she kept him at it. He was dragged out on 
an average of two nights a week to mingle with the 
flower and chivalry of Rockhurst’s smartest set. 
The other men sympathized with him»and I suppose 
the ladies finally got used to him. I never heard 
him complain but once, and then he confided to me 
that sittin’ for three hours cramped up at a card 
table was awful hard on the legs. But I judge that 
he wasn’t what you might call a social success. 


WHEN VICTOR GOT GOING 


175 


So when Mrs. Annis lets out this moan about 
gettin’ Victor where he is my feelin’s on the subject 
are kind of mixed. 

“Only imagine!” she goes on. “Victor working 
in a meat market ! ’ ’ 

“Settled on that, have you?” I asks him. 

He nods. “I’m sorry, on Mollie ’s account,” says 
he, “but I’ve got to do something. They keep the 
bank too hot, and the air gets bad. The doctor must 
know. He said it was only a spot, up in one corner, 
but it would grow worse if I didn’t change. I might 
learn to drive a truck, but that would take time. And 
Mollie wouldn’t like moving back into the country 
where I could get a lumber yard job. Besides, I 
know something about cutting meat. Helped out 
one summer at a market in Skowhegan. And if I 
could get a place in town we could stay on here.” 

“But — but what will our friends say?” protests 
Mrs. Annis. 

“If they’re real friends they’ll stick by us,” says 

Victor; “if they’re not ” He shrugs his 

shoulders. 

“Suppose,” says Mrs. Annis, glancin’ at me 
shrewd, “suppose they weren’t told?” 

“They won’t hear it from me,” says I. 

But Victor shakes his head. “I can’t go on,” says 
he. “Besides, it was those night affairs that helped 
wear me out. They — they kind of got on my nerves. 
No. We’ll have to drop all that, Mollie.” 

“But we needn’t say just what you’re doing, need 
we?” she insists. 

“I — I suppose not,” says Victor. 


176 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


“Then we won't,” announces Mrs. Annis, waggin' 
her head bird-like. 

With which they drifts out. I couldn't see that 
I'd helped much in this domestic crisis of theirs. 
Nobody could, in fact. It was going to be rough on 
the little lady, who'd planned and schemed and 
worked until she'd lifted herself and Victor from 
almost the bottom rung of the ladder to what she 
probably thought was the top. Did she, though? No 
tellin' what ambitions was still buzzin' under that 
slick head of black hair. Maybe she'd planned to 
shove Victor on and on. But now, just as she 'd got 
him well under way the hard hand of fate reaches 
out and puts a crimp in the whole business. He was 
goin' to quit sortin' out crisp new bills to lady 
depositors and go to cuttin' lamb chops and slicin' 
off round steaks. And somehow I couldn't help 
thinkin’ of Victor's partin' remarks. 

“At least,” says he, “I mean to be a good meat 
cutter.” 

Now what the blazes did he mean by that? As 
though it was a trade you could shine at ! 

Anyway, the Annises dropped out. They hung 
on in the little stone cottage, but hardly anybody 
saw 'em any more. For one thing, Victor had to 
catch the 6:45 instead of the 8:03 express, and he 
didn't get back until all hours in the evenin’. Peo- 
ple wondered some but nobody seemed to know just 
why. It was noised around that Annis had left the 
bank and taken up another line. 

“I don't see why they're so mysterious about it,” 
comments Sadie. “What other line, I wonder?” 


WHEN VICTOR GOT GOING 


177 


“ Maybe he’s robbing fur lofts,” I suggests. 
i ‘ That seems to be a popular industry these days.” 

“I believe you know, Shorty,” says she. 

‘ 4 I’m a knowin’ guy, I’ll admit,” says I. 

“Pooh!” says she. “I’m going over to see Mrs. 
Annis and find out. ’ ’ 

She went, but she came back just as wise as she 
started. Which was no reflection on Sadie’s ability 
as a cross-examiner. I’ll bet a whole aggregation 
of corporation lawyers couldn’t have made Mollie 
Annis spill that secret of hers. 

Several months flitted by, as months have a habit 
of doin’. And then here the other night I comes 
home to find Sadie all excited. She ’d been shopping 
in town that afternoon and had finished the day by 
huntin’ up a favorite lady com doctor of hers who’d 
moved up to One Hundred and Twenty-fifth street. 

“And who do you suppose I saw up there, 
Shorty?” she asks. 

“The corn doctor,” says I. 

“Victor Annis,” says she. 

* ‘Well, he goes to town every day, ’ ’ says I. 6 * Why 
not?” 

‘ 1 But I saw him at work, ’ ’ says Sadie triumphant. 
“He was in the front show window of one of those 
big meat and produce markets, and he was cutting 
meat.” 

“Eh?” says I. “Sure it was Victor?” 

“Do you think I could mistake that face?” de- 
mands Sadie. 

“But why was he in a show window?” I goes 


178 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


on. “They usually have their meat blocks in the 
back, don’t they? Sounds a bit odd.” 

“I don’t care,” says Sadie. “I know what I saw. 
Only there was such a crowd* watching him that I 
couldn’t get very close. If I hadn’t been in a hurry 
I should have gone in. But there he was, cutting 
meat in a show window.” 

1 ‘ Huh ! ’ ’ says I. ‘ ‘ Guess I ’ll have to scout around 
up there myself tomorrow.” 

So the next noon I takes a run up; and sure 
enough, I hadn’t walked more’n a block before I 
located him. It was just as Sadie had described, 
except that there wasn’t any show window. The 
glass had been taken out and an iron railing run 
across, leaving a sort of booth effect, inside of 
which was Victor, dressed immaculately in white 
duck, with a white chef’s cap set jaunty on the back 
of his head and presidin’ behind a white enameled 
meat block. Out front was a crowd, mostly women, 
that nearly stopped the traffic, while inside was 
another bunch watchin’ him through the glass par- 
tition. 

Course I stops and edges my way in, finally gettin’ 
up to the rail right in front of him. 

“Hello, Vic,” says I. “What you doin’ here — 
givin’ an exhibition?” 

As he sees who it is he grins and waves a boning 
knife that looks as sharp as a razor. “Wait a few 
minutes, Shorty,” says he, “and I’ll knock off for 
lunch. Soon as I finish this. ’ ’ 

So I hangs up and watches with the others. The 
operation was worth watchin’, I’ll say. Wliat he 


WHEN VICTOR GOT GOING 179 

begins with looks like an ordinary rib roast of lamb, 
but it don’t look that way long. He cuts away at 
it as skillful as a surgeon eliminatin’ an appendix, 
whittlin’ off the ends of the ribs, cutting out some 
of the middle, and then twistin’ the whole thing 
until it’s the shape of a basket. Next he runs the 
surplus meat through a chopper, pats it into the 
basket affair, decorates the rib ends with paper 
frills like they put on French chops, adds parsely 
and sprays of water-cress, and wraps the thing in 
oiled paper. 

“What do you call it — a meat bouquet?” I asks. 

“Crown roast,” says Victor. “Rather neat, 
isn’t it?” 

“Almost a poem,” says I. “Never saw a roast 
of lamb fixed up as fancy as that before. Where ’d 
you get to be such an artist?” 

He don’t explain until he’s shed his white uniform 
and we’ve wandered down the street to a grill room. 

“I took lessons of the best meat chef in New 
York,” says he. “Got the notion from the way 
Mollie learned to play bridge. If that was worth 
while studying, thinks I, surely what you have to 
make your living at must be, too. Of course, I 
began as a plain steak slicer down in a Washington 
market stall. But as soon as they found I could 
do the fancy stuff they put me at it. Then I read 
books about the different ways of cutting meat and 
dressing game and poultry. Even invented a few 
tricks of my own. Wish I could show you how I 
can prepare a turkey for the pan, or a roasting pig, 
or a tray of quail. Surprising how much you can 


180 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


learn about this game when you really go after it.” 

“You’ve surprised me already,” says I. “How 
did you come to get this show window job uptown?” 

“Asked for it,” says Victor. “And after I’d 
shown ’em what I could do they gave it to me. At 
the end of the week I told ’em I was going to quit 
unless they paid me my price to stay. They paid. 
Honest, Shorty, I’m getting nearly twice as much 
as my bank salary. Besides, I’m enjoying the work 
more and I’ve got my health back.” 

“But still ” says I. 

“I know,” says Victor. “A banker is somebody 
and a meat cutter isn’t. They say I’m the best in 
the country, though, and that’s something. And I’m 
not going to stay here long, you know. ’ ’ 

“What next?” says I. 

“General demonstrator for the Keef e-Collins 
Company,” says Victor. “They own a chain of big 
resort hotels — one in the White Mountains, another 
at Atlantic City, two in Florida, one in California, 
and so on. Mr. Collins, the president, happened to 
see me at work one day last week. We had a talk 
and he engaged me to travel around and give les- 
sons to their meat chefs. Signed the contract yes- 
terday. We shall go everywhere, and live well, too. 
Mollie will like that, I think, even better than going 
to bridge parties in Rockhurst.” 

“You sure have landed in luck, Victor,” says I. 
“How do you get that way?” 

“It’s simple enough,” says Victor, springin’ that 
smile of his. “If you can’t do what you like, then 
like what you do.” 


WHEN VICTOR GOT GOING 


181 


“Listens easy when you say it quick,” says I. 
“Must be something in it, too. But I expect a lot 
of folks will still stick to luggin’ around the left 
hind foot of a rabbit and waitin’ for it to work.” 


XIII 


THE PART WARRY MISSED 

I F I’d suspected this young Warry Bixby had 
all that up his cuff I’d have side-stepped the 
whole affair and let him untangle the kinks in 
his little romance the best way he could. But then, 
see what I would have missed when Brick Hogan 
and the Hon. Hi. led the civic virtues down a dark 
alley and slugged her with a piece of lead pipe. 

A good-sized, well-built, nice-appearin’ young 
chap, H. Warren Bixby, but kind of slow-motioned 
and quiet-talkin’. I always had him sized up as a 
dead one. Anyway, mostly ossified above the ears. 
Maybe that was because he ’d made such a poor stab 
at the various things he ’d tried since he came home 
from college. Law was what he tackled first, but 
after three or four tries at the Regents’ exams, 
without any favorable report from Albany he sort 
of scratched his entry as one of the coming legal 
lights of Westchester county. 

And I expect that was a hard dose for the Hon. 
Hiram Bixby to swallow. You know, an only son 
and all that. But when Warry couldn’t tell a tort 
from a nolens volens the old man got him into a 
bond house in town where he lasted all of three 
weeks. Then he gave the life insurance game a 
182 


THE PART WARRY MISSED 


183 


whirl. That was Warry ’s star performance, I un- 
derstand. The way they tell it he was set to can- 
vassin’ a district over in Montclair. Looked like a 
good field all right, among all them swell com- 
muters, and Warry starts out loaded down with an 
armful of literature and blanks. How should he 
know that the territory had been raked with a fine 
tooth comb by experts ? Most likely he did his best, 
too, but at the end of five days all he ’d interviewed 
had been butlers and parlor maids, and he hadn’t 
been able to show a single party where to sign on 
the dotted line. 

Finally he gets desperate. It was one afternoon 
about five o’clock when he’d been shunted away from 
twenty-seven front doors in succession and his feet 
hurt him. Way back from the road though was a 
big double-breasted stone house, and when the maid 
tries to shut him out as usual he puts his foot in 
the door. 

“Now see here,” says he, “I simply must see the 
man of the house. It’s mighty important.” 

“Very well, sir,” says the girl. “I’ll tell him.” 

In a couple of minutes she comes back and says 
that the master’s very sorry but he’s too busy to be 
seen just then. 

“Is, eh?” says Warry. “What the blazes is he 
so busy about?” 

“He — he’s shaving, sir,” says the maid. 

“Good work!” says Warry. “Here, give him 
these blanks. He ’ll need one in a minute and I have 
no use for ’em.” 

Which might have been almost clever of Warry 


184 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


only it happens that the man who was presented 
with a year’s supply of shavin’ paper was vice- 
president of the company Warry was supposed to 
be workin’ for. So when the story got around it 
got a good many laughs, but it didn’t help boost H. 
Warren’s stock as a business man. I’ll bet when 
the Hon. Hi. heard it he turned turkey red clear 
up into his white banker side-whiskers. Anyway, 
he called off Warry ’s outside career and made him 
sort of assistant office boy at the First National in 
Rockhurst-on-the-Sound and let it ride at that. 

Not that Warry was an absolute flivver at every- 
thing. They say he plays a good game of golf, can 
drive a stripped roadster almost well enough to 
qualify for a Vanderbilt cup race, can roll the 
spotted bones so that others in the game must read 
’em and weep, and knows all the latest shimmy 
steps for these new jazz tunes. In fact, he’s a pop- 
ular young gent in the country club set. 

All of which don’t help get him in right at home. 
Hardly. The Hon. Hi. Bixby’s notion of spendin’ 
a perfectly good evenin’ is to sit in his libr’y and 
plot out how to unload ten acres of swamp land on 
out-of-town investors, or figure how he can squeeze 
a mortgagor so he can foreclose on a corner lot. 
And he can’t see why Warry shouldn’t be contented 
to do the same. 

Course, I’m just givin’ you my rough guesses on 
the status quo in the Bixby fam’ly. Me and the 
Hon. Hi. have run up against one another more or 
less in town affairs, as maybe you remember my 
relatin’, but about all I knew of Warry was what I’d 


THE PART WARRY MISSED 


185 


heard casual in the smokin’ car on the eight-fifteen, 
or knockin’ around at the Yacht and Country Club. 

So I’m some surprised, here last Saturday after- 
noon, as I swings off with the other commuters, to 
get the hail from the young man. 

“Oh, I say, McCabe,” says he. “Could I have a 
word with you?” 

“Maybe two or three,” says I. “Shoot.” 

“You’re a friend of Brick Hogan’s, aren’t you?” 
he goes on. 

“In a way,” says I. “What then?” 

“I haven’t met him — that is, formally,” says he. 
“And I’d like to. It — it’s about Alicia.” 

“Oh-h-h!” says I, droppin’ my left eyelid 
knowin’. “I see.” 

I’d heard Sadie and Mrs. Purdy-Pell and some of 
the others chatterin’ about this affair of Warry’s 
with Alicia Hogan, but I hadn’t got much excited 
over it. In fact, I hadn’t taken much stock in 
their gossip. But now I has to smother a chuckle. 
This would be kind of a rich mix-up if it was so. 
Brick Hogan’s daughter and the son and heir of 
the Hon. Hiram Bixby! Well, well! For the Hon. 
Hi. had been chairman of the Citizen’s League that 
had put Brick Hogan out of business as political 
boss of the district four or five years back. Came 
very near gettin’ the goods on Brick, too, and sendin’ 
him up the river. 

They hadn’t though. Not quite. And only last 
November Brick had come back after several lean 
years when he couldn’t name so much as a school 
janitor or pull out a street openin’ contract. He’d 


186 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 

come back strong, though, and now if you want to 
pull off any kind of enterprise in this sector, from 
startin’ a new movie house to loadin’ the trolley- 
ridin’ public with eight-cent fares, you gotta see 
Brick first. 

Must be more or less profitable, bossin’ a district 
like this, for Brick has bought and moved into a 
near-Moorish stucco palace on the Post Road, drives 
around in a shiny limousine that’s a cross between 
a movin’ van and a new hearse, while Mrs. Hogan 
has taken to drapin’ herself in pearl ropes and is 
threatenin’ to crash into society. 

As for Alicia, she don’t seem to give a hoot 
whether she gets in or not. Some girl, I’ll say. 
And how she has come along these last few years ! 
Why, when I first got to know Brick she was just 
a long-legged slip of a young miss strugglin’ 
through high school and chummin’ with Rosie Sal- 
vator a, the Dago cobbler’s daughter, and Mamie 
Muller, who was cashier in her father’s grocery 
store. 

Had a habit of carryin’ her chin well up even then, 
although her Daddy was down and out and most of 
the Rockhurst young ladies looked the other way 
when she passed by. But now, after studyin’ music 
in Boston for a couple of years, and havin’ won the 
ladies’ singles tennis cup at Agawampus, she’s quite 
a diff erent party. She ’s tall and straight and grace- 
ful, and them black eyes of hers are some brilliant. 
Don’t seem to make much difference what she wears, 
from a ridin’ costume to a ball dress, she’s a star. 
And you can’t blame Warry much for taggin’ 


THE PART WARRY MISSED 


187 


around after her at the Club dances. But when it 
comes to his gettin’ in so deep that he wants to talk 
to her father — well, that develops an interestin’ 
situation. 

“Alicia Hogan, eh?” says I. “Won’t this he 
kind of a jolt for the old man?” 

Warry shrugs his shoulders. “I’ve heard his 
opinions on the subject,” says he. “Perhaps you 
can guess what they are. That is one reason why 
I must see Mr. Hogan at once.” 

I didn’t quite follow this, but I piles into the 
roadster with Warry and five minutes later I’m 
towin’ him into the front office of Hogan & Co., 
general contractors. The young lady stenog. says 
how Mr. Hogan is engaged just then. 

“Yes, he generally is,” says I. “But you tell 
him it’s Shorty McCabe and see if he can’t break 
loose.” 

He could and did. But there’s a curious flicker 
in them shrewd, steady eyes of his when he sees 
who’s with me. 

“Well, Shorty?” says he, leadin’ us into an ad- 
joinin’ room and wavin’ us to take chairs. 

“Brick,” says I, “shake hands with Warren 
Bixby. He’s the young man that ” 

“Yes, I think I understand just who young Mr. 
Bixby is,” breaks in Brick. “Let’s see, you’ve been 
running around with Alicia some, haven’t you?” 

Warry pinks up under that and shuffles his feet 
nervous, but he gets a grip on himself and looks 
Brick straight between the eyes. 


188 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


“It’s gone further than that, Mr. Hogan,” says 
he. “I have asked Alicia to marry me.” 

“The blazes you have!” says Brick. He lets it 
out sort of crisp and gruff, but I can tell by the 
way his mouth corners soften up that it ain’t the 
most unwelcome news he could hear. “Well, had 
any luck?” 

“The best I could wish for, sir,” says Warry. 

“Hah!” says Brick, turnin’ a chuckle into a 
grunt. “What about the folks at home? Talked it 
over with them, have you ? ” W airy nods. 6 i That ’s 
why I’m here,” says he. 

“I don’t get you,” says Brick. “They’re not en- 
thusiastic? That it?” 

Another nod from Warry. “Especially father,” 
says he. “I may as well acknowledge, Mr. Hogan, 
that we’ve had a grand row over the matter. He 
made all the usual threats, about cutting me off and 
turning me loose, and that sort of thing.” 

“And you want to weaken, eh?” sneers Brick. 

“No,” says Warry. “I’ve been through all that 
before. Besides, it’s time I got out and hustled for 
myself. I think I know how to do it now. I’m 
willing to try, anyway. But, among other things, 
father said about you was something that I’d like 
cleared up before we go on, so that I may know just 
where I stand. Mind you, it’s not going to make 
any difference between Alicia and me. Not the 
slightest. Only, if it should happen to be true, it 
might affect our plans.” 

“H-m-m-m!” says Brick, eyeing him steady. 


THE PART WARRY MISSED 189 

‘ 4 Well, what neat little left-handed compliment did 
your respected father pay me?” 

“It — it wasn’t a direct accusation,” hesitates 
Warry. 

“No, it wouldn’t be, coming from him,” says 
Brick. “Hinted at something, didn’t he? Just 
what?” 

“That you handled the yellow dog fund which 
put that Inter-State trolley franchise steal through 
the last Legislature,” says Warry. “The one that 
the attorney-general is investigating. ” 

At which Brick Hogan never even flickers an eye- 
lash. “Oh, that!” says he. “Gave you to under- 
stand I was mixed up in the deal, did he? Nothing 
very new about that, son. I’m the district leader 
and, of course, they try to tag me with it. Just 
politics, young man.” And Brick shrugs his shoul- 
ders careless. 

“But he as good as told me,” goes on Warry, 
“that you were almost certain to be indicted for 
bribery within the next forty-eight hours. ’ ’ 

“Naturally,” says Brick. “This is a hold-over 
grand jury. It’s the opposition taking a final kick 
at me. Only the boot is never going to land.” 

“Father seemed sure it would,” insists Warry. 
“He’d just had some direct news. It seems that 
one of your strikers got rather badly scared when 
a deputy served him with a summons ; trotted right 
down to the district attorney’s office, in fact, and 
turned State’s evidence.” 

“Eh?” says Brick, them bushy eyebrows of his 


190 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


humpin’ up. “You didn’t hear who that was, did 
you?” 

“Yes,” says Warry. “A bookkeeper in the water 
works department who had carried some of the 
money to Albany. Chap by the name of Feltner.” 

“Feltner!” Brick Hogan lets it out gaspy and 
husky. “I’ll get that chicken-livered shrimp for 
this. You’ll see.” 

Warry stares at him curious. “Then — then you 
don’t deny?” he asks. 

“Bah!” says Brick. “ Feltner ’s a sore-head, 
that’s all. Wanted another raise and didn’t get it. 
Always whimpering about his sick wife and his big 
family. That for him!” And he snaps his fingers. 

“That isn’t denying, though,” protests Warry. 

“I don’t have to,” says Brick. “See here, whose 
word would you take quicker than mine in this 
affair?” 

“I don’t know,” says Warry. “And I shouldn’t 
be asking you, Mr. Hogan, if it wasn’t going to make 
such a difference in our plans; Alicia’s and mine, I 
mean. You see, we had settled on the fifteenth of 
next month for the wedding. I wanted to do it right 
■ — church ceremony, bridesmaids, ushers, all that 
sort of thing. But, of course — if — if ” 

“I see,” comes in Brick. “If I’m going to be in 
jail about that time it would be awkward. Well, 
suppose I should be? What then?” 

“We would just slip off somewhere and have it 
done quietly, tomorrow or the day after,” says 
Warry. 

“You mean that?” demands Brick. 


THE PART WARRY MISSED 191 

“I have my suitcase all packed and stowed in the 
back of the roadster,” says Warry. 

“Say, you’re rather a game youngster,” com- 
ments Brick. “Didn’t think it was in you. But you 
needn’t worry. I’ve been in politics twenty-five 
years and never served a day’s sentence yet. I 
shall still he at liberty on the fifteenth of next month. 
And as for my innocence — say, when was it you 
heard all this alarming stuff from your father?” 

“Last night, sir,” says Warry. 

“Ah!” says Brick. “He may have found out 
since then that his information wasn’t trustworthy. 
We’ll see.” 

With that Brick reaches behind him and pushes 
open a door. “Hey, Bixby!” he calls out. “Step 
in here a minute, will you ? ’ ’ 

I don’t know which of us was more bug-eyed, 
Warry or me, when the Hon. Hi. Bixby, white side- 
whiskers, black string tie, gray spats and all appears 
from Brick Hogan’s private office. He’s holdin’ his 
neck stiff as usual, but his face is pinked up con- 
siderable and his long fingers are twitchin’ nervous. 

“You’ve heard the little chat we’ve been having; 
eh, Bixby?” says Brick. 

The Hon. Hi. admits that he has. 

“Then you know what’s bothering your son at 
present,” Brick goes on. “Perhaps you can relieve 
his mind some as to the safety of his future daddy- 
in-law?” 

“H-m-m-m !” says the Hon. Hi. clearin’ his throat. 
“The — ah — reports which reached me yesterday do 


192 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


seem to have been somewhat exaggerated, I con- 
fess.’ ’ 

1 4 That’s mild but cheering,” says Brick. “And 
now as to my connection with those bribery charges? 
You have a copy of that franchise bill in your pocket, 
haven’t you? Let’s have it on the desk here.” 

The Hon. Hi. produces the document from an in- 
side pocket. 

“Good!” says Brick. “And you’re chairman of 
the executive board of this same trolley company, 
aren’t you, Bixby?” 

4 ‘ I suppose I am, ’ ’ admits the Hon. Hi. 

“And you were consulting me as to the probable 
validity of this franchise in case this bribery in- 
vestigation got too hot, weren’t you?” says Brick. 
“Wouldn’t be doing that, would you, if you believed 
I had done the bribing, eh?” 

“Hardly,” says the Hon. Hi. 

“How about it, son?” says Brick, turnin’ to 
Warry. “Feel easier in your mind?” 

“Very much, sir,” says Warry. 

‘ ‘ Then we ’ll let you run along, ’ ’ says Brick. “You 
and Alicia will be wanting to fix up that church 
wedding affair. Let’s make it a bang-up one, eh?” 

“Thank you, sir. We’ll do that all right,” says 
Warry, and hurries out beamin’ joyous. 

The door has hardly shut behind him before Brick 
Hogan sets that rugged chin of his and whirls on 
the Hon. Hi. 

“Thought you could double cross me, did you?” 
he demands. “Willing to use me in your financial 
schemes, but when it comes to a Bixby-Hogan wed- 


THE PART WARRY MISSED ~ 193 

ding you mean to block it if you have to stand me on 
a trap door and press the button. Eh?” 

“My dear Mr. Hogan,” protests the Hon. Hi., 
“you have entirely misunderstood my purposes. I 
assure you that I ” 

“You needn’t,” -cuts in Brick. “We know each 
other too well for that, Hi. Bixby. You’ve got what 
you want. Now I’m going to have what I want. 
Those young people ’s plans are not to be interfered 
with. Understand?”^ 

“But — but there’s Feltner,” suggests the Hon. Hi. 

“Who signed his bail bond? You?” says Brick. 

The Hon. Hi. nods. 

“Then we’ll count that in as one of the unlisted 
wedding presents,” says Brick. 

“You — you mean — ” begins Bixby, his jaw 
droppin ’. 

“Exactly,” says Brick. “Feltner disappears. 
He’d better catch the Montreal express tonight. 
You’ll see to that, Bixby.” 

“But — I — I- ” protests the Hon. Hi. 

“Perhaps you’d like to have me go before that 
grand jury? Would you?” asks Brick, his jaw 
stuck out. 

“I think I get your point of view,” says Bixby. 
“And, of course, if we are to consider the happi- 
ness of our young people, it is probable that you 
are quite right. I — er — I’d better see Feltner at 
once. ’ ’ 

With which he backs out, leavin’ me with my 
mouth open and Brick Hogan wearin ’ one of them 
grim campaign grins of his. 


194 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


“Didn’t forget I was here all the while, did yon, 
Brick ?” says I. 

“No, Shorty,” says he. 

“If I was to give a guess,” says I, “I think I 
could name the party who handled that trolley 
money.” 

“Oh, yes,” says he. “So could a thousand other 
men in this district. But no judge would let you 
put your guess before a jury. So what’s the odds?” 

“I’m kind of sorry I heard as much as I did, 
though, Brick,” says I. “Course, I know crooked 
deals like that are goin’ on all the time, hut ” 

“I get you,” says Brick. “They rung you in on 
that Citizen’s League a few years back, didn’t they? 
Well, you saw how they managed affairs after they 
got me out. Made a mess of ’em, didn’t they? And 
inside of two years the pure, high-minded citizens 
who were going to give us such a wonderful reform 
administration just got tired and quit. And I 
climbed back on the driver’s seat and took the reins 
once more. Why? Because I know how. And am 
I in this thing for my health? Not me. I’m an 
expert and I want an expert’s pay. So why put 
up a howl if I collect from those it hurts least to 
unbelt? Eh?” 

Well, I didn’t have the answer. I ain’t figured it 
out yet. All I’m reasonably sure of is that Warry 
Bixby is goin’ to marry Alicia Hogan and that a 
party by the name of Feltner is unaccountably 
missing 


XIV 


SHORTY HEARS FROM TAMARACK 

H EY, Shorty/ ’ says Swifty Joe the other 
mornin’, cornin’ into the front office of the 
Physical Culture Studio, “ here’s a lot more 
mail for that High-bee party/ ’ 

“Meanin’ Higbee, I expect ?” says I. 4 4 Well, 
dump it on top of the safe with the rest.” 

Swifty proceeds to sort it out careful, the second 
class in one pile, the letters in another, and stacks 
it neat on the other piles. For anything with a post- 
mark on it is sacred to Swifty. He don’t average 
more’n two letters a month himself, I suppose, hut 
four times a day he has his ear stretched for the 
postman’s whistle and has to paw all over mine 
first to see if he hasn’t drawn something. Even oil 
stock circulars and pamphlets from ready-made 
clothing houses he’ll open expectant and lug home 
to show to the wife. 

So this heap of postal junk that’s been pilin’ up 
for the last five or six weeks for Milt Higbee gets 
him some impressed. i 1 Must be some guy, this 

High ” 

“Hig,” I puts in. 

“Well, anyway,” goes on Swifty, “he’s a reg’lar 
person, ain’t he?” 


195 


196 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


“If you let him tell it,” says I. 

“ Ahr-r-r chee !” says Swifty, usiIl , only the south- 
west corner of his mouth. “ If he wasn ’t why should 
they write him like this — The Hon. Milton High — 
Hig-bee, Esq.? Where’s he at, anyway?” 

“Give it up, Swifty,” says I. “Looks like he 
was on his way to New York. Probably he’ll be 
bio win’ in here some of these days and then you’ll 
have a chance to feast your eyes on him.” And I 
swallows a chuckle. 

For Milt. Higbee ain’t just the party you’d nat- 
urally load down with any such titles. Not if you 
knew him. Little shrimp of man with watery blue 
eyes and thin sandy hair. He has a way, though, of 
swellin’ his chest out and walkin’ on his tiptoes, 
like a prize bantam, and he makes as much of his 
62 inches as anybody of his height I ever met. 

Let’s see, it must have been a dozen or fifteen 
years ago, maybe more, that I first ran across him 
out in Tamarack, Mich. Back in the days when I 
held the championship belt and was on one of my 
exhibition tours, takin’ on the local pugs for 60 per 
cent of the gate. I remember how sore I was at 
my fool manager for billin’ me to make this jump 
from Grand Rapids to Tamarack, a place that was 
hardly on the map. And the first thing we heard on 
landin’ there was that the Opera House had burned 
down the night before. 

Next thing we heard, though, was the squeaky 
voice of Milt. Higbee. We’d hardly got off the train 
before he was at it. Couldn’t shake him off, either. 
He follows us to the hotel and pumps it at us all 


SHORTY HEARS FROM TAMARACK 197 


through breakfast. Seemed he owned a roller 
skatin’ rink somewhere on the outskirts of Tam- 
arack and he was dead set on our usin’ that instead 
of cancellin’ the date. Mostly to get rid of him, but 
partly because we had a two-days’ layover ahead 
of us, I gave the word to sign up with him. 

Grateful! Say, right there I made a friend for 
life. For the next twelve hours I had him at my 
heels, offerin’ to do things for me and tellin’ me 
all about his career. At that it wasn’t such a fas- 
cinatin’ or thrillin’ tale. But Milt, insisted on going 
into all the details, startin’ with where he was 
clerkin’ in a grocery store at Petoskey when an aunt 
in Lowell, Mass., died and left him nearly $9,000 on 
account of him being her only nephew. Then he’d 
promptly married Luella, the boss’s daughter, and 
chucked his job. 

His next move was to hunt up this Tamarack 
place and go into the real estate business. Where he 
got the idea he was cut out for a real estater, or why 
he picked Tamarack as a likely field was two mys- 
teries he failed to explain. Anyway, he goes on to 
relate how he had bought this hundred-acre tract 
and staked out a perfectly good addition to Tam- 
arack’s residential section. The street railroad peo- 
ple had promised him they would extend their line 
out to his property and he had it all doped out how 
the town was bound to grow his way. 

But it didn’t. First off an outside corporation 
bought up the street car line and built an extension 
in just the opposite direction, out to where some of 
the officials was developin’ a little side issue of their 


198 MEET 'EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


own. And somehow he couldn't induce anybody to 
buy his corner lots and start the boom. So Detroit 
avenue and Superior boulevard got choked up with 
fennel weed and scrub oak, and the little one-story 
shack where Higbee had hung out a big sign down 
on Main street, Tamarack, was chiefly used as a 
loafin' place by a few of his friends who dropped 
in now and then for a game of checkers. The blue 
print maps faded without any of the plots being 
blocked off in red ink as sold. 

Then, about the end of the roller skatin' craze, 
Higbee raised enough money to build this barn of 
a rink. He was desperate. He meant to make Tam- 
arack come out to his property, whether or no. But 
Tamarack didn't. Two managers failed to make a 
go of the rink, after which it stayed vacant, except 
for the birds that flew in through the broken win- 
dow panes where boys had tried out their sling- 
shots. Milt Higbee wouldn't give up, though. He 
opened up the little office at 9 A. M. every day, hung 
around lonesome until 5 P. M., and managed to scrub 
along on the insurance busines he could pick up. 

So you can see why he was on hand the mornin' 
after the Opera House burned. Right after break- 
fast he insists on loadin' me and my manager into 
a buckboard and drivin' out to Higbee Park. I 
don't know as I've ever seen a more forsaken place. 
You know — street corner signs, staggered crazy 
through the weeds, burnt spruce stumps stickin' up 
here and there, and in the middle this great, weather- 
beaten shack of a rink loomin ' doleful. But Higbee 
went on to tell us hopeful how some day all these 


SHORTY HEARS FROM TAMARACK 199 


plots would be built up with fine bouses. Even tried 
to sell me a lot, and when I sidestepped the invest- 
ment he offered to give me one. I had to tell him 
I’d been converted to the Single Tax theory and 
didn’t believe in holdin’ land I couldn’t use, in order 
to get out of it. 

I did have to stop at his house and be introduced 
to Luella. Quite a whale of a girl, Luella was. You 
might know a strutty little wisp like Higbee would 
pick out an over-sized wife. And the loose cotton 
wrapper she was wearin’ didn’t make her look any 
more sylphlike. She was fryin’ potatoes for din- 
ner, I remember, and came into the front room with 
her face the color of a turkey’s neck. Wasn’t any 
too enthusiastic about meetin’ company either, I 
judged from the looks she gave Milt. 

Around the hotel that night I got a slant on where 
Milt. Higbee stood. “Huh!” says the landlord grin- 
nin’, “Milt, took you out for a view of his addition, 
did he? Know what we call it? Higbee ’s subtrac- 
tion. Sometimes Minus Park. Sold a lot out there, 
once, Milt, did, but before he could deliver the deed 
a cruel keeper led his customer back to the asylum. 
Ought to ask the boys to tell you about that auction 
Milt, pulled off once. It was a scream.” 

From all of which, as well as from other remarks 
along the same line, I sort of gathered that Mr. 
Higbee ’s real estate enterprise was Tamarack’s big 
joke. And I expect that night when I punched the 
ring ambitions out of two young sawmill hands there 
never had been so many people in Higbee Park, and 
hasn’t been since. But it left Milt, with more real 


200 MEET 'EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


money than he’d seen in a heap for years and he 
never forgot it. Used to write me reg’lar once a 
month, tellin’ how Luella was well, only she ’d fleshed 
up some, and how he had a prospect from Saginaw 
out to the Park and almost sold him a lot. 

Then here five or six years back Higbee drifts 
into the Studio, dressed kind of seedy, but with a 
hopeful flicker in them weak blue eyes. A mild boom 
had hit Tamarack — some firm had put up a wood 
pulp mill and a patent chair bottom factory had 
located there. Milt, had got the hunch that if he 
incorporated his development scheme he could come 
on East and sell the stock to weak-minded investors. 
Hung around a couple of weeks before he gave it 
up and went back. I was kind of sorry for him 
at the time. Course, he was a good deal of a bore, 
but if ever optimism came concentrated in a small 
package Milt, was it. 

“I hate to give it up this way,” he said as he 
left, “for I’m dead sure if I could get at the right 
parties here they’d be interested and put up the 
capital to develop that splendid property. I’d make 
a go of it, sure as you’re a foot high. But I just 
couldn’t seem to find ’em. Worst of it is, the boys 
are going to kid me more’n ever when I get back. 
But I’ll show ’em some day. You’ll see.” 

“That’s the stuff, Milt.,” says I. “Took Colum- 
bus over 300 years to develop America after he 
found it, remember.” 

I only heard from Milt, a few times from then on, 
and after a while only by a card at Christmas or 
New Year’s. Then all of a sudden this mail begun 


SHORTY HEARS FROM TAMARACK 201 


to come in for him, sent in my care. I didn’t know 
why and didn’t do much guessin’. All I could figure 
out was that maybe he’d quit Tamarack and was 
driftin’ around lookin’ for a job, expectin’ to strike 
New York eventually. Only glanced over the stuff 
casually. Course, there was quite a bunch of it, but 
Milt, always was great for writin’ letters on his 
flashy business paper, so I took it for granted that 
most of these were from people declinin’ to invest 
in his real estate. All that correspondence made a 
hit with Swifty Joe, though. He thought it ought 
to be stowed in the safe and when I wouldn’t let 
him he used to dust it off careful every day. 

“Chee!” he’d remark. “Glad this ain’t my mail 
knockin’ around like this. It would get me 
nervous.” 

“Yes, I expect it would,” says I. 

And here day before yesterday, as I’m gettin’ 
into my street clothes after puttin’ one of my 
reg’lars through a half-hour session, Swifty comes 
rushin’ into the gym and whispers husky: 

“Say, Shorty, he’s come!” 

“Eh?” says I. “Who’s come?” 

“The Hon. Higbee, Esquire,” says he. “There’s 
a lady with him, too. Some swell girl, I’ll say.” 

“Whaddye mean, swell?” I demands. 

“Oh, dolled up elegant; furs ’neverything, ” 
says he. 

“Can’t be Milt, then,” says I. 

But it was. Milt, in a mink lined overcoat and 
sportin’ gray spats and a cane. Also Luella, draped 


202 MEET 'EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


in sable with real tails danglin' in rows, and a 
Pekingese dog cuddled under one arm. 

‘ ‘ For the luvva Mike ! " I gasps. ‘ ‘ Where did you 
drop from?" 

“Just up from Bermuda," says Milt. “We're 
stopping at the Plutoria." 

“The Plutoria! you are?" says I. “Then the 
boom did get to your addition, after all?" 

“No," says Milt. “It's the same old Minus Park. 
Only the rink isn't there any more. The boys 
touched that off Armistice night." 

“But you must have struck something some- 
where," I insists. “Don’t tell me you've planted 
another aunt." 

“No," says he. “I ran out of aunts some time 
ago. It was the Park that made good, too, only not 
just the way I'd planned. You see, quite a spell back 
I got hold of a man who'd just landed in Tamarack. 
Course, I tried to sell him a lot or so. He claimed 
he was broke, hardly had money enough to get back 
to Escanaba with. But I didn't let up just for that. 
I offered him easy terms, a dollar down if he wanted. 
I always did. No, he wouldn’t even risk that. 
Wouldn’t let me show him the Park. ‘ Tell you 
what I will do, though,' says he, after a while. ‘I 
don't know anything about these lots of yours, but 
they can't be any more worthless than a farm I've 
just left down in Texas. Two hundred acres in it. 
And if you're so dead set on making a trade I’ll 
take two of your corner lots and swap even.' ‘It's 
a go,' says I. ‘Been more than five years since I’ve 
sold a foot of land to anybody and I want to see what 


SHORTY HEARS FROM TAMARACK 203 

it feels like.’ So we closed the deal and he left on 
the next train. ’ y 

“ Texas, eh?” says I. “And it turned out to be 
in the oil section?” 

“Bang in the middle of it,” says Milt. “Gush- 
ers all over the place. You know what that means, I 
suppose? Why, the lease for one little corner ran 
to over a hundred thousand. Cash, Shorty. All at 
one clip. Say, maybe we lost any time shaking the 
dust of Tamarack off our feet. Eh, Luella?” 

“I should say not,” says Mrs. Higbee, hunchin’ 
her shoulders into the sable haughty. “Tamarack! 
Huh!” 

“Then you’ve quit the old town cold, have you?” 
I asks. 

“Absolutely,” says Milt, rappin’ his walkin’ stick 
on the floor. “No more of that one-horse, back- 
biting, scrubby little town for us. We Ve had plenty, 
thank you. Eighteen years of it, and not a man or 
a woman there we could really count as a friend. 
Oh, maybe two or three. But that’s all.” 

“What you been doing since you left?” says I. 

“Oh, traveling around,” says Milt. “Tried Cal- 
ifornia for a few months. Sort of dull, though, 
sitting around in them big hotels with nothing to 
do but take sight-seeing trips, men nearly all play- 
ing golf and the women bridge. Luella and me felt 
kind of out of it. So we started off on a South 
American tour, down the West coast, across the 
Andes to Buenos Ayres, then up to Rio and so on 
back. Landed here in a blizzard and caught the first 
boat for Bermuda. Same thing there as in Cali- 


204 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


fomia — golf, bridge and sight-seeing trips, and 
everybody strangers to ns. Say, Shorty, you don’t 
know how good it seems to see somebody we know. 
Come up and have dinner with us, won’t you?” 

“ Can’t make it tonight, Milt.,” says I. “Maybe 
some night next week. But tell me, how long has 
this been goin’ on?” 

“Let’s see,” says he, “we left Tamarack about 
nine months ago. Seems years, though. Haven’t 
heard a word from there since we sailed for South 
America. Knew we’d end up here so I had my 
mail all sent to you. Hope you didn’t mind?” 

“Not a bit,” says I. “I think it has worried 
Swifty some, though. Such a stack of it. There it 
is, stowed on top of the safe.” 

“Huh!” says Higbee, pokin’ at it careless with 
his cane. “Does look like quite a lot. Not impor- 
tant, though. Mostly circulars and royalty state- 
ments, I suppose. I’ll send a porter down for the 
collection later on.” 

“Then you’re goin’ to settle down with us in New 
York for a spell, are you?” I asks. 

“Only while we’re getting our passports for 
France,” says he. “Mean to take a look at the 
battlefields and then jog around until we find some 
good place to camp for a few months, in Italy, 
maybe, or Egypt. ’ ’ 

“Think you’ll like it, livin’ among foreigners?” 
says I. 

“Between you and me, I don’t,” says Milt. “But 
Luella wants to try it. ’ ’ 

“Why, Milton Higbee!” protests Luella. “You 


SHORTY HEARS FROM TAMARACK 205 


know very well you’re the one who keeps us on the 
move. I don’t like it a bit better than you do. Hon- 
est, Mr. McCabe, I’ve been so lonesome lots of times 
that I’ve just gone to my room and cried.” 

“And I’ve tipped hotel waiters just to talk to 
me,” says Milt. “Maybe you’d like to go hack to 
Tamarack; eh, Luella?” 

“Don’t talk foolish, Milt,” says she. “I won- 
der, though, how the old stick-in-the-muds out there 
are getting on. Hand me some of those home 
papers, will you?” 

“The ‘ Tamarack Evening Record,’ ” says Milt., 
rippin’ the wrapper off one of ’em, “otherwise 
known as ‘The Evening Wretched.’ Poorest apol- 
ogy for a newspaper printed in the whole country, 
bar none. Here you are, Luella. Friday, Oct. 29th. 
That ought to be good and ripe by this time.” 

Mrs. Higbee sniffs scornful as she opens it to the 
local page and adjusts her platinum lorgnette. Milt, 
shucks the wrapper off another and settles himself 
in a chair. For a minute or so all I hear from either 
of ’em is a grunt or a sniff. Then Luella chuckles. 

“Well, what do you think, Milt.?” she breaks out. 
“Sue Harkley has gone and married that young 
Miller fellow, the one who carried on so with that 
grass widow, Tillie French, after he came home from 
the army. I don ’t see how she could. But he must 
have steadied down some. I see it says he has a 
position in the First National.” 

“Oh, Al. Miller’s all right,” says Milt. “Little 
frisky after being in France so long, but there’s 
good stuff in him. Say, I see how old Tim Hendry’s 


206 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


had another stroke and has had to quit business for 
good. I expect that son-in-law of his will have to 
run the furniture store now. And the Presbyte- 
rians have raised fifteen thousand to build a new 
church; Indiana limestone, with a spire. That’ll 
be quite an addition, won’t it?” 

“They’ve started up the Fortnightly Euchre 
Club,” comes in Luella. “First meeting at the 
handsome new residence of Mrs. William Degrow, 
on Huron avenue. Humph! Reads well, doesn’t it? 
Remember how she bragged that they were going to 
put in a tiled bathroom and steam heat, and then 
when they got the contractors ’ estimates concluded 
to leave out the tiling and get along with a hot air 
furnace ? But I suppose that two-story stucco house 
with its dinky porte cochere looks pretty swell to 
Tamarack. And the Degrows pretend to be ” 

“I say,” breaks in Milt. “Who do you guess 
is dead, Luella? Judge Abel Martin! And Mrs. 
Martin plans to live with her sister in Milwaukee. 
Going to sell the old mansion. Got it advertised, 
furniture and all.” 

“You don’t mean it, Milt!” says Mrs. Higbee. 
“The very place you always said you meant to buy 
when the Park made good. How — how much do 
you think it could be bought for?” 

“Oh, that’ll go cheap,” says Milt. “Too big for 
most folks, too much ground. Two acres of lawn to 
keep up.” 

“But it — it wouldn’t be too big for us, would it, 
Milt.?” suggests Luella. 

“I should say not,” says Higbee, swellin’ out his 


SHORTY HEARS FROM TAMARACK 207 


chest. “And you know, Luella, that could he made 
a mighty fine house, with a little building over. I 
could get one of those crack architects from Grand 
Rapids to draw the plans and make it a regular 
humdinger, like some of those swell places we saw 
out to Los Angeles. Best location in town, you 
know. Course, the grounds would have to be land- 
scaped modern and all that. Wouldn’t it knock 
their eye out if we should do it, though?” 

Mrs. Higbee is just gazin’ starey over the top of 
Milt.’s head. 

“I rather guess I could entertain the Fortnightly 
then, eh?” she puts in, after a minute. 

“And maybe they’d let me into the Tamarack City 
Club,” suggests Milt. 

“WelL, why not, Milton?” demands Luella. 

“Gosh, Luella!” gasps Higbee. “That’s what* I 
say. Let’s!” 

And blamed if they don’t go to a fond clinch right 
there, spillin’ the Pekingese and the Evening Rec- 
ords all over the floor in their excitement. 

“Excuse us, Shorty,” apologizes Milt., “but we — 


“Go to it,” says I. “My guess is that you’re on 
the right trail at last. Might be interestin’ enough 
wanderin’ around France and Italy, but I’ll bet 
you’ll have more fun back in Michigan makin’ the 
Tamarack folks sit up.” 

It was a decision, all right. They checked out at 
10 A. M. the next morning, Milt, only havin’ time 
enough to call up over the ’phone to say good-bye. 

“Hardly slept a wink all night, either of us,” says 


208 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


he. ‘ 1 Both planning what we mean to do to Tam- 
arack when we get there. I’m going to buy in on 
the street car line for one thing, and run the tracks 
out to Higbee Park. Going to have a house on 
every blamed lot if I have to build ’em myself. Said 
I’d show ’em sometime, you know.” 

‘ 1 Sic ’em, Milt., ’ ’ says I. 4 4 Make ’em change that 
minus sign to a plus. And I’ll bet when Mrs. Higbee 
displays that wardrobe of hers in Tamarack she’ll 
have the Fortnightly ladies jumpin’ through a hoop 
for her. Eh?” 

And as I hangs up I hears Milt, let out a chuckle. 


XV 


AN ATRIUM THAT WENT WRONG 

I T’S a new line for me, I’ll admit. This Shylock 
real estater act. And if I hadn’t already fliv- 
vered in my openin’ scheme I doubt if I’d had 
the nerve to go on with it. 

You see I got myself rung in as a mortgagee here 
a few years back by tryin’ to help out a young artist 
party who’d started to build himself a house down 
on the Point, which is really the highbrow section 
of Rockhurst-on-the-Sound. Nice, decent chap he 
was, too. Not one of the long-haired, short-brained 
kind. More or less of a reg’lar person, this Dicky 
Horton was. Really worked at it. Turned out pic- 
tures for magazine covers, colored page ads. for 
perfumery, fire extinguishers, breakfast foods, any- 
thing that was ordered. 

Dicky had this little stucco affair of his all fin- 
ished and was about to move in when he was jinxed 
seven ways. First off the war put a crimp in the art 
game so that all he could find to do was Red Cross 
and Liberty bond posters, which he was paid for in 
thanks — sometimes. Then he got bumped by a taxi 
one night and was laid up for a couple of months, 
and he’d barely limped out of the hospital when the 
little wife was taken off by the flu, which left Dicky 
209 


210 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


mighty discouraged and flat broke. He wanted to 
quit and go back to the old farm out near Peoria 
for a good rest. So I writes him a check for what 
equity he has in the place, pays up the contractor’s 
lien, and takes over the property. 

Course, it wasn’t a good buy. Sort of freaky 
near-bungalow Dicky had built after his own ideas. 
The ground floor was mostly studio, with no win- 
dows except one whaling big skylight on the north 
side. He had tacked on a dinky kitchen and a couple 
of chambers with a sleepin’ porch as sort of an 
after-thought. But there’s no butler’s pantry, or 
room for a maid, and no garage. So it didn’t rent 
easy, even after the house shortage got so bad. It 
stood idle for a year or so and I wrote Dicky urgin’ 
him to come back and take it off my hands at his 
own terms. But Dicky had picked up a new job 
with a Chicago firm of ad. agents and was plannin’ 
to marry an old girl of his in Peoria and couldn’t 
see it at all. 

Which was a few of the reasons I was so easy 
with this young couple who finally showed up and 
asked for my lowest selling price. I must say I 
wasn’t impressed much by either of the Roland 
Pottles. That’s the name they gave. And Roland 
looked it. A sallow-faced, hollow-chested gink with 
dead black hair that hung over his coat collar in the 
back and a bored look in his dead black eyes. He had 
a bamboo walkin’ stick hung on one arm and wore 
yellow gloves, but his pants needed pressin’ bad and 
his collar had been to the laundry too often, but not 
too recent. 


AN ATRIUM THAT WENT WRONG 211 

Young Mrs. Pottle wasn’t so worse. A perky, 
bright-eyed little party who glanced admirin’ at 
Roland constant and gushed enthusiastic over the 
house. 

“It’s simply too darling for words, isn’t it, 
Roland, dear?” she asks. 

“Oh, perhaps it might do,” says Roland airy. 
“I can’t say I fancy the outlook. There should be 
a vista cut through those trees so that one might 
have a glimpse of the water. Perhaps that could 
be arranged, however.” 

“Well, hardly,” says I. “Them maples happen 
to be on the Boomer-Day estate and he wouldn’t let 
you chop one of ’em down for any money. If you 
want the house I guess you’ll have to pass up the 
vista.” 

“Oh, please, Roland, let’s take it,” urges Mrs. 
Pottle. 

And after stallin’ around some more Roland 
agrees. Come to find out, though, all he was willin’ 
to pay down was about twenty-five hundred. Still, 
with the balance bringin’ me in six per cent that was 
better than carryin’ it, so we closed the deal. And 
I noticed that it was the young lady who signed 
the check. 

First off I thought the Pottles was goin’ to show 
a lot of class in the neighborhood, for they had the 
grounds fixed up neat and then splurged on a couple 
of big porcelain jars with tall spindly cedar trees 
in ’em set on either side of the front door. The 
effect is quite stunnin’ and Christmas-cardy. 

Next we hears from Mrs. Boomer-Day that 


212 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


Roland Pottle is a headliner in the interior dec- 
oratin ’ business. ‘ 6 He has simply wonderful ideas, ’ ’ 
she confides to Mrs. McCabe. “So artistic, you 
know. I am going to have him do over my music 
room. Such talent as he has ought to be encouraged, 
don’t you think?” 

But a week or so later Mrs. Boomer-Day had 
another thought. It seems that Roland’s wonderful 
ideas would run into big money if carried out. All 
he wanted to do to the music room was to revise the 
window and wall scheme, give the interior woodwork 
an egg-shell finish of Maeterlinck blue — nine coats 
rubbed down with oil and pumice — scrap the old 
rose silk hangings for imported velours, cover the 
parquette flooring with a $3,200 Chinese rug and — 
well, a few other little items that I forget. 

Anyway, he lost the job, not altogether because 
he was plannin’ to blow in as much on one room as 
would build a fair-sized house, but chiefly on account 
of the cocky way he turned down one or two timid 
suggestions of Mrs. Boomer-Day’s. 

“Why, he was actually rude about it,” she ex- 
plains to Sadie. “Fairly sneered at me. So I just 
told him I had decided not to have the room done 
over, after all.” 

Course, Mrs. Boomer-Day didn’t neglect to spread 
the tale around Rockhurst, and if Roland had 
counted on pickin’ up any local business he was 
queered from the start. That didn’t worry me at 
all until the bank notified me that the Pottles hadn’t 
come up with the semi-annual interest payment on 
the mortgage. I told ’em to send another notice 


AN ATRIUM THAT WENT WRONG 213 


and let it slide for a month or so. Then when I 
found that the taxes was overdue and the insurance 
wasn’t being kept up I braced myself for a little 
business call on Roland. I drove down one Satur- 
day afternoon. 

After quite a wait between the spindly cedars 
Mrs. Pottle opened the door. She ’s costumed simple 
in a pink smock effect with light green trimmings 
and I noticed for the first time that she wears her 
hair boxed. My next jolt is when I steps into the 
big studio and finds that it’s almost as bare of fur- 
niture as a theatre lobby. There’s a rummy lookin’ 
worm-eaten old oak table in the middle of the room 
— an antique, I expect — also a couple of odd lookin ’ 
high-backed chairs, a marble bench and a five-foot 
urn-shaped jar with a weird design painted on it. 
That’s about all, though, unless something more 
was concealed behind the Chinese screen in one 
corner. 

“ Ain’t movin’ out or anything are you?” I asks. 

“Oh, no,” says Mrs. Pottle. 

“Then I take it you ain’t quite finished movin’ 
in?” says I. 

She laughs easy. “Oh, I see what you mean,*’ 
says she. “But this is Roland’s idea of furnishing 
an atrium.” 

“Eh?” says I, gawpin’. 

“That’s the old Roman name for this sort of a 
room,” she goes on, “an atrium. And Roland says 
it should be furnished as simply as possible. Use- 
less chairs and tables are his pet aversion, you 
know. Louis Seize had the same notion. He would 


214 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


have nothing around him that might detract atten- 
tion from him. He wished to dominate, if you know 
what I mean. And Roland — well, that is his idea, 
too. So ” and she spreads out her hands. 

“Huh!” says I. “I must say he’s carried it out. 
Speakin’ of Mr. Pottle, though, could I have a talk 
with him!” 

“I — I’ll see,” says she. “This is his hour of re- 
pose but perhaps ” 

With that she disappears behind the screen and 
after some grouchy grunts from him, followed by 
whispered urgin’ from her, she tows him out. He’s 
a picturesque bird when he’s first dragged from the 
nest, I’ll say. He’s draped in a green silk kimono 
effect belted in loose with green curtain cord, a pair 
of sandals on his feet, and his dead black hair failin’ 
stringy over his pasty forehead. 

“Sorry to pry you out of the hay,” I begins, “but 
there’s a few little business matters I’d like to take 
up with you. Now about this interest on the mort- 
gage.” 

“Oh, that!” says Roland, yawnin’. “Beastly 
bore, business. I — I will attend to that some time or 
other when I’m in the proper mood.” 

“That’s encouragin’,” says I. “Got any idea 
when it will strike you? Within the next week or 
so, eh?” 

“Really, I couldn’t fix a date,” says Roland, 
lightin’ a cigarette dreamy. 

“You see,” puts in Mrs. Pottle, “Roland is so 
temperamental. ’ ’ 

“That goes in some things,” says I, “but not 


AN ATRIUM THAT WENT WRONG 215 


when it comes to mortgages. Course, I’m no inter- 
est hound, but this matter has been runnin’ on for 
some time now. Then there’s the taxes and the in- 
surance to be met.” 

“Oh, I am sure Roland will attend to all those 
things just as soon as he can make some money,” 
comes in Mrs. Pottle. 

“Eh?” says I, prickin’ up my ears. “Is that 
right, Pottle? Does she mean that ” 

“Please leave this to me, Vera,” says Roland 
peevish. “The fact is, McCabe, I haven’t been able 
to get some big contracts which I expected to land. 
Business has been perfectly rotten. When it picks 
up I will see what I can do for you.” 

“That’s nice,” says I, “but a bit vague. How- 
ever, if you could pay up a couple of hundred on 
account I might ” 

“My dear man, ’’breaks in Roland, “that’s utterly 
impossible. Two hundred dollars! No, I — I — sim- 
ply haven’t got it.” 

“Why, Roland!” exclaims Yera. “But we had 
ever so much that Uncle Peter gave me before 


“It’s gone, though, ’ ’ says Roland. ‘ ‘ Do you think 
I bought that refectory table and that Chinese vase 
and those Spanish chairs for nothing? Then there 
have been our living expenses. I haven’t dared fig- 
ure up recently, but I know there can’t be much 
left.” 

“Then — then we shall just have to call on Uncle 
Peter,” says she. 

“I suppose we shall,” says he. 


216 MEET ’EM WITH SHOETY McCABE 


“Listens like a good line,” says I. “What about 
Uncle Peter?” 

“Oh, he’s an impossible old bore,” says Eoland. 
‘ 1 A very crude person, you know. Deals in leather. 
Wears velvet neck scarfs and a plush hat. Per- 
fectly villainous tastes about everything — art, music, 
literature, even to what he eats and the way he 
eats it. Early Victorian. You understand?” 

“If he’s in leather, though,” says I, “his bank 
rating is apt to be good.” 

“Oh, he has money,” says Eoland. “It’s per- 
fectly scandalous how much he’s made since the 
war. A million, I suppose.” 

“Then I should say that in a case like this,” and 
I winks knowin’ at Eoland, “that Uncle Peter ought 
to be called in. ’ ’ 

“But you — you don’t understand,” says Vera. 
“He acted perfectly dreadful when he found I was 
going to Eoland. Didn’t he, Eolly, dear?” 

And havin’ got away to a flyin’ start like that, of 
course they didn’t stop until they’d spilled the whole 
story. At least, enough so it was no trick to patch 
it together. Seems Vera was an only niece and 
for a while there a high favorite with Uncle Peter. 
About his only remainin’ relation, in fact. He’d 
looked after her and brought her up since she was 
left a double orphan at nine. 

Vera had been strong for Uncle Peter, too, until 
she came back from some flossy girls’ boardin’ 
school with a new set of measurements for the male 
of the species. Then she put the tape on Uncle 
Peter and discovered that he was a misfit. He was 


AN ATRIUM THAT WENT WRONG 217 


too broad in the beam and too low in the brow. 
Also when he hung a napkin over his velvet necktie 
and inhaled his soup enthusiastic she couldn’t help 
feelin’ shuddery along the spine. She discovered 
that he still stuck to round cutis and Dick Croker 
collars, size 16, and that his idea of keepin’ up on 
current events was to read the Shoe and Leather 
Reporter from cover to cover. 

I gathered that it wasn’t until Vera got this art 
bug so hard that livin’ on Pineapple street, Brook- 
lyn, under the same roof with Uncle Peter gave 
her a case of nerves. He took it manful, though, 
when she announced that if she was ever to follow 
her career as a sculptress she’d simply have to live 
her own life in her own way. He went and sub- 
leased a studio for her on Washington Square, paid 
up a year’s rent, and gave her a generous monthly 
allowance. 

Then Vera had gone to it with a whoop. Inside 
of three months she had learned to tackle a 10 A. M. 
breakfast in bed, light up a cork-tipped dope-stick 
with her coffee, and as a final touch had acquired 
a Greenwich Village hair cut. Then she had met 
Roland. Seems to have been a case from the first 
fond glance. Anyway, I suspect Roland made no 
false motions after he heard how Vera had an uncle 
who wrote rent checks so casual and was particular 
to keep her bank balance up to a certain figure. 

There was one meetin’ between Roland and Uncle 
Peter. Just one. It happened on a Sunday after- 
noon when Vera, arranged to bring ’em together at 
the Studio and break the news of the coming event 


218 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


And never had Vera seen uncle act more like a 
wholesale leather dealer and less like a gentleman. 
He had grown red in the face, snorted, pounded the 
table, used profane language. He had said perfectly 
awful things to Roland. Right to his face. Also he 
had told Vera that if she couldn’t pick out a better 
specimen than this to marry she must do it all on 
her own. He was through. Absolutely. And with 
that as a farewell shot he had marched out, tread- 
ing heavy on his heels and leaving Roland wabbly 
in the knees. 

At first they didn’t know what to do. Roland 
was quite upset over the scene. I have a hunch that 
he was about ready to call it all off, but then Vera 
pulled the spunky stuff. Why bother about an 
uncle who could be so crude as that? Let him go 
hang. Wasn’t Roland a genius with a wonderful 
career ahead of him? They could manage somehow. 
Didn’t she have money in the bank and a whole lot 
of Liberty bonds and War-Saving Stamps? They’d 
just go right ahead with the wedding, rent or buy 
a little place somewhere out in the suburbs, and 
Roland could start right in as a decorator. And 
when his fame had spread from Bar Harbor to Pas- 
adena and he was sought out by all the wealthy and 
great, perhaps Uncle Peter would be sorry. So they 
had come to Rockhurst, and — well, I knew the rest. 
They would write to Uncle Peter at once. 

i ‘Better put in all the details,” I suggests, ‘ ‘ about 
the interest and everything, and how the hard- 
hearted owner threatens to foreclose.” 

My guess was that Uncle Peter would simply snort 


AN ATRIUM THAT WENT WRONG 219 

and toss the letter into the waste basket. That is, if 
he still remembered Roland. But it was a good 
chance for me to take. I didn’t want to turn ’em 
out, and I wasn’t anxious to get the place back. 

I waited a week before droppin’ around again 
and I wasn’t surprised to hear that no word had 
come. 

“He may be off on a business trip,” suggests 
Roland. “If you could give us a week or two 
more ” 

1 1 All right, ’ ’ says I. “ C all it two. ’ 9 

Then the next day, which was Sunday, I happens 
to be down to the station with the roadster lookin’ 
for a friend of Sadie’s who must have missed her 
connections or something, and as I ’m about to leave 
I gets the hail from this ruddy-faced, chunky-built 
old party in the loud-checked suit. 

“Say,” he demands, “where do the Poodles live 
out here ? ’ ’ 

“Poodles?” says I. “I don’t know of any but 
four-legged ones. You don’t mean ” 

“No, no!” he breaks in. “Not poodle dogs, 
though one of ’em is what I’d call a young puppy. 
Human Poodles. Young married couple. Name’s 
something like that. Or maybe it’s Pootle.” 

“How about Pottle?” says I. 

“That’s it! Pottle,” says he. “He’s a lanky, 
shingle-chested freak with long hair. Lets on to 
be some kind of an artist.” 

‘ 4 Uli-huh ! ’ ’ says I. 6 1 Roland Pottle, Some friend 
of his, are you?” 


220 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


‘ ‘I ’ll be hanged if I am, ’ ’ says he. i i 1 y m his wife ’s 
uncle, though.” 

“Oh, yes!” says I. “ Uncle Peter. Climb right 
in and I’ll take you down there. Guess they’re kind 
of lookin’ for you.” 

“Huh!” says he. “They are, are they? Well, 
we’ll see. I’ve got this far, anyway. No fool like 
an old one, you know. Swore I’d never go near 
’em. He’s no earthly good, that Pottle. What Vera 
could see in him is too much for me. But I used 
to think a lot of Vera. She — she’s all I’ve got left. 
Didn’t think I’d miss her so much. But I do. 
Nowhere to go Sunday afternoons. You know. I 
can stand it through the week. Business. But on 
Sunday — well, I get lonesome. Must see Vera once 
more. I hear they’re not getting on well financially. 
I could have told her that. Anyone could, after 
one look at that Pottle. But she’s my niece, all the 
same. Ought to look ’em up, I suppose.” 

“I think you’ll find the latch-string out,” says I. 

Wish I could have been in on that reunion, but all 
I saw of it was a glimpse of Vera as she opens the 
front door and discovers Uncle Peter examinin’ 
scornful the slim cedars. The affair must have had 
a happy endin’, though, for bright and early Mon- 
day mornin’ I gets a ’phone call from Roland askin’ 
me snappy if I could stop in soon and go over a lit- 
tle business matter with him. I made it that eve- 
nin’, and what does he greet me with but a wave- 
lined blue slip with Uncle Peter’s autograph on it 
under a four-figure amount. 

“M-m-m-m!” says I through my teeth. “That’s 


AN ATRIUM THAT WENT WRONG 221 

what I call some uncle. Going to take over the 
property himself, is he?” 

‘Oh, yes,” says Roland. “It’s a mere trifle to 
him.” 

“And he’s going to do something else for us,” 
adds Vera. “He wouldn’t tell me just what, but 
I’m sure it will be something nice. He’s rather an 
old dear, Uncle Peter.” 

“I wonder what he’s planning, though,” says 
Roland, wrinklin’ his pasty brow. 

He found out a few days later when a truck load 
of furniture from a Brooklyn department store 
backed up, and a lady flat fitter begun bossin’ the 
job of uncratin’ the stuff. Course, it was all over 
by the time I got around to callin’ with the deed. I 
discovers Roland and Vera wanderin’ dazed in the 
midst of this collection of near-mahogany rockers, 
stuffed easy chairs, onyx-topped tables and so on. 

Uncle Peter sure hadn’t stinted himself when he 
did the orderin’. If he’d measured the floor space 
and then bought enough to cover it he couldn’t have 
made a much closer guess. He’d left mighty little 
margin for movin’ about. Yes, there was all the 
furniture two people could possibly use, even if they 
was furniture addicts. As for the color scheme, 
Uncle Peter hadn’t bothered with that. He’d 
picked a davenport upholstered in bright blue vel- 
vet, set it off with a red leather arm chair, and added 
a willow rocker painted a vivid green. Then for 
good measure he’d thrown in a couple of big rugs 
with a sprawly flower design and half a dozen cheer- 
ful toned oil paintings in wide gold frames. 


222 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


“Just look what has happened to our lovely at- 
rium ! ’ ’ moans Yera. 

“You could almost hang out the S.R.O. sign, 
couldn’t you?” says I. 

“I feel absolutely suffocated among all this rub- 
bish,” says Roland. “And look at those awful 
color combinations. They clash so I can hardly 
sleep.” 

“Got to keep it all, have you?” I asks. 

“Oh yes,” says Vera. “Uncle Peter plans to 
spend every Sunday with us. And it’s his house, 
you know. He meant well, of course ; but did you 
ever see such wretched taste?” 

“I expect he’s a good judge of leather,” says I. 
“He looks kind of husky, too; as though he might 
last quite some time.” 

“Oh, years and years!” groans Roland. “Mean- 
while we shall have to live on with — with this.” 

Before I left, though, Yera was struck with a 
brilliant idea. She’s kind of bright, in her way. 
And when she explains it to Roland he almost 
cheers up. 

“That’s so!” says he. “We could hang draper- 
ies across the studio, about two-thirds of the way 
back, and pile most of it away every Monday morn- 
ing. It would be a deuce of a job, though, getting 
it back again every Saturday.” 

“The exercise might be just what you need, 
dear,” suggests Vera. “And think of the relief to 
our nerves and your temperament. ’ ’ 

“Yes, I believe it would be worth while,” says 
Roland. “Let’s try it now.” 


AN ATRIUM THAT WENT WRONG 223 


And when I left he was struggling to balance the 
blue davenport on a brass-legged onyx table and a 
Circassian walnut stand. I’ll bet it’s the first real 
work he’s tackled in years. 

Somehow ever since then, if I’m tempted to in- 
dulge in a blue Monday or a sour Saturday, I can 
always chirk up. All I have to do is to think of 
Roland and his bi-weekly movin’ day. Generally 
the picture is good for a chuckle. 


XVI 


LITTLE SULLY SPEAKS UP 

I MIGHT never have doped it out if it hadn’t 
been for Miss Fannie. My theory of being a 
parent, I mean. In fact, I didn’t know I had 
any fixed ideas on the subject until she begun 
pumpin’ ’em out. If you’d asked me before that I 
expect I’d scratched my head and admitted I was 
raisin’ a fam’ly like I’d play the flute — if I ever 
got that reckless — by ear. 

“Do you know, Professor McCabe,” she starts in, 
“I think your two children are simply wonderful.” 

“Oh, I don’t know as I’d go that far,” says I, 
strugglin’ hard to register modesty. “They’re 
both live wires, all right, if that’s what you mean.” 

“But they are such perfect pictures of health and 
youthful happiness,” she gushes on, “and such 
eager innocence beams from their dear eyes.” 

1 1 Ye-e-es ? ’ ’ says I. 6 1 Glad you think so. ’ ’ 

Miss Fannie always had a way of statin’ her views 
enthusiastic, with her foot on the accelerator, you 
might say, and you couldn’t very well doubt but 
that she meant most of it; at the time, anyhow. 

Kind of an interestin’ female party, Miss Fannie. 
Maybe I’ve mentioned her before. I ain’t sure. 
Sort of a cousin or something of Mrs. Purdy Pell’s. 
224 


LITTLE SULLY SPEAKS UP 


225 


Must have been rather a swell looker when she was 
young, and now that she ’s slipped past the forty 
mark she ’s making a brave stab at givin ’ the old boy 
with the scythe and the sand works 7 clock a run for 
his money. Uh-huh ! I ’ll bet there ain ’t any tricks 
of the beauty parlor, from henna to anti-wrinkle 
bandages, that Miss Fannie ain’t hep to. And 
when it comes to drapin’ herself in fancy raiment 
she simply lifts the lid and goes the limit. 

I used to wonder how, with her kittenish ways 
and all, she’d managed to stay Miss Fannie so long. 
That is, until finally I got the whole story from 
Sadie. It was a case of her being the older sister 
and lookin’ after an invalid mother and a gouty 
father while young sister grows up and cops off 
the one man that Fannie had the net over. It 
didn’t sour her, though. She stuck to the bedside 
job until both of her patients checked out, and then 
she woke up to find herself an old maid of thirty- 
five or so with a stout-plus figure, lines under her 
eyes, and her brown hair beginnin’ to frost up. Also 
though, she had a generous income, no cares but a 
pet Pomeranian, and all her future leadin’ away 
from the front steps. 

So Miss Fannie proceeds to cut loose. She’d al- 
ways wanted to travel so she goes to it strong. For 
a couple of years there her home was Suite B off 
the promenade deck, or drawing room A in car 
137. She flitted from Banff to Bangor, from Loch 
Lomond to Knights Key, from Port Antonio to 
Crawford Notch. Then she’d drift back to her old 
rose and gray duplex apartment on East 60th Street, 


226 MEET ’EM WITH SHOBTY McCABE 


unpack the wardrobe trunks, get Beppo out of hock 
at the kennels, and settle down for another shop- 
ping campaign; filling in her spare time by renew- 
ing her permanent wave, having her eyebrows re- 
vised and hitting up a course of highbrow lectures 
and Carnegie Hall recitals. 

If Miss Fanny had seen more hi her share of dull 
days when she was young she sure was makin’ up 
for ’em now. So far as I could judge she was havin’ 
one whale of a time, with no hubby to check up her 
monthly bills critical or grouch about her daily pro- 
gram. What if she did use the face fresco liberal, 
or toddle around on high French heels ? There was 
nobody to hand out a knock. And any time she got 
discontented playin’ a lone hand all she had to do 
was drop in on Sister Belle up in Yonkers and listen 
to her tales about eight-hour cooks, frozen plumb- 
ing, and how Jimmy, the ex-net dodger, was car- 
ryin ’ on with some blonde vamp at the Country Club 
dances. 

Spring might have been wet and dreary for Miss 
Fanny, but her mid-summer days were warm and 
sunshiny. She was always workin’ up new enthus- 
iasms. Her latest seems to be for youngsters and 
I found out why when she begins to gush about a 
lecture she’s heard recent. It was on Childhood, 
by the Eeverend Percey Van Sump. 

“He did put it so beautifully,” goes on Miss 
Fannie, “and said such lovely things about them in 
the most charming manner. ‘The soul’s budding 
time’ was one of his phrases, I remember. And 
then when I recalled that I had not seen your two 


LITTLE SULLY SPEAKS UP 


227 


little darlings since they were mere babies I sim- 
ply had to come right over. And I do hope I may 
have more than a mere glimpse of them.” 

Course, that line of talk goes big with Sadie. She 
eats it up. First thing I knew she’s asked Miss 
Fannie to spend the rest of the day with us, and 
have Sunday dinner with the fam’ly. And when 
Sadie dashes up to the nursery to fetch little Sis- 
ter I trails along to remind her that we’d planned 
an afternoon drive up to Greenwich. 

“But Miss Fannie is such a dear,” says Sadie. 

“Huh!” says I. “With her face enameled up 
like a bedroom set and ” 

“S-s-s-sh!” says Sadie, nudgin’ me and glancin’ 
panicky at little Sister, who has stopped puttin’ 
her dollie to bed and is listenin’ with both ears. 

You know that’s one of the things we have to be 
careful about at our house — saying things before 
little Sister. Not that she means to make trouble 
or let you in bad with callers. Anyway, I never 
could believe she did. Them big blue eyes are in- 
nocent lookin’, as Miss Fannie says. But they’re 
mighty observin’ too; and when it comes to 
stretchin’ an ear — say, that little seven-year-old has 
got a dictaphone lookin’ as useless as a cow-catcher 
on an airplane. 

The worst of it is, though, that little Sister is 
such a free and casual converser. Specially with 
strangers. Nothing shy or self-conscious about her. 
No hidin’ her head in mother’s lap, or peekin’ 
around corners. Not much. Little Sister’s way is 
to give ’em the slow and careful once-over, from 


228 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


boots to bonnet, then look ’em square in the eye 
and maybe unload some personal remark, flatterin’ 
or otherwise, but generally otherwise. And it’s apt 
to come out so unexpected. Like what she sprung 
on Mrs. Boomer-Day once when that billowy party 
was urgin’ little Sister to climb up in her lap and 
be folksy. 

“No,” says little Sister. “I don’t see much lap. 
But you got a lot of chins, ain’t you?” 

And I remembered havin’ commented on the 
lady’s chin surplus only the day before. Little Sis- 
ter had simply picked up the remark and stowed it 
away, like a whiskered Red would hoard up a stray 
hand grenade, to use with much the same effect. 
Oh yes, I admit a habit like that ought to be dis- 
couraged. Maybe we ain ’t tried too, explainin ’ how 
it wasn’t nice for little girls to say everything they 
happened to think. 

“But I don’t,” says little Sister. “Couldn’t I 
think such lots and lots of things.” 

I expect she does. Seems to be that kind. Some- 
times for hours you won’t hear a word from her, 
but when she does cut loose it’s generally straight 
from the shoulder. So no wonder Sadie is wor- 
ried about my droppin’ this careless remark, com- 
parin’ Miss Fannie’s face to a bedroom set. We 
edges out and holds a consultation. 

“Maybe she didn’t catch it,” I suggests. 

“Oh, I’m sure she did,” says Sadie. “I can tell 
by the way she was holding her head.” 

“But she couldn’t know who it was meant for,” 
says I. 


LITTLE SULLY SPEAKS UP 


229 


“She would guess,” says Sadie. 

Then we debated whether it would be best to 
warn little Sister that a nice lady was going to stay 
for dinner and she mustn’t mention anything about 
her high face colorin’, or if we should try to buy 
her off with two plates of ice cream. As either 
scheme would take more or less time and diplomacy 
we decides just to let it ride and watch out. 

That was a poor hunch. From the minute little 
Sister got settled at the table she hardly took her 
eyes off Miss Fannie’s face, studyin’ her deliber- 
ate and thorough but not lettin’ out a word. And 
all the while I was tryin’ to decide what I’d do if 
she started to make a break. Should I drop a plate, 
or grab little Sister and rush out pretendin’ she had 
a bone in her throat? I don’t know what was run- 
nin’ through Sadie’s mind, but I could see she was 
gettin’ nervous. 

As for Miss Fannie, she gushes on, first about 
little Sister and then about Sully. “Such a dear 
little girl,” says she, “and such a sweet manly lit- 
tle fellow! As the Keverend Percey Van Sump so 
truly says, *Ah, to know once more the untroubled 
joy of childhood! To live over again those long 
calm days of perfect happiness.’ If we only could, 
Mr. McCabe!” 

“Eh?” says I, tearin’ my eyes from little Sister 
a second. “Oh, yes. Well, that is, some might like 
it. As for me, I can’t say I would.” 

“But surely, Mr. McCabe,” she protests, “you 
were far happier as a child than you can ever be 
now.” 


230 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


I shakes my head. Anybody who starts gushin’ 
always taps my stubborn streak. “No,” says I, “I 
don ’t think so. As I remember it I was always get- 
tin ’ into some scrape or other. If it wasn’t with 
the cops on the street it was the old man at home, 
or else with the gang in the next block. Mostly I 
was scrappin’ with somebody, and generally gettin’ 
licked. ’ ’ 

“But think of your happy schooldays,” insists 
Miss Fannie. 

“I’d rather not, ’ ’ says I. “I didn ’t get much fun 
out of fractions, or drawin’ maps of Africa, or 
tryin’ to remember the different kinds of verbs. 
All them things seemed like so many useless puz- 
zles invented to keep your head muddled. And gen- 
erally the teachers were such old crabs. They’d 
get me up before forty or fifty other kids and make 
a show of me. Say, even now if you ’d ask me quick 
what’s the capital of Indiana, or how to spell pneu- 
monia, I’d get thick in the tongue and shivery down 
the back. And as for them examinations they used 
to give us to see whether we’d get promoted or stay 
in the same room another term — say, I ain’t had 
any nightmares since that were as bad. Course, I 
might have been different from others. Maybe the 
general run of youngsters have long calm days of 
perfect happiness. But I didn’t.” 

Miss Fannie won’t have it that way, though. 
‘ 4 Ah, but one forgets, ’ ’ says she. 4 4 One fails to take 
into account that freedom from care and responsi- 
bility that only children have. Your own little boy, 


LITTLE SULLY SPEAKS UP 


231 


for instance. See how free he is from the little 
worries and anxieties which fret us grown-ups/ ’ 

“How about that, eh, Sully ?” says I, glancin’ 
across to where our son and heir is tryin’ to swipe 
a piece of frostin’ that’s flaked off little Sister’s 
hunk of cake and gettin’ caught in the act. 

“Aw, she don’t like frostin’ much anyhow,” pro- 
tests Sully, not quite gettin’ the drift of the con- 
versation. 

I’d noticed before that he hadn’t waded into his 
Sunday dinner with his usual husky appetite and 
I’d wondered why he was fidgetin’ in his chair. 
And now when he goes through these uneasy mo- 
tions and is so quick to put up a defense for some- 
thing he ain’t been accused of, I sort of keeps my 
eye on him. All I could make out though is that he’s 
watchin’ the front driveway that he can see through 
the dinin’ room window. 

While I was puzzlin’ over this I clean forgot 
about little Sister, so when she pipes up sudden 
with, “ I say, Pop,” I simply gives her the go-ahead 
signal careless. And the next thing I know she’s 
started to unload what’s been on her mind so long. 

“ Which bedroom set, Pop?” she demands. 

“Eh?” says I, gawpin’ and tryin’ to guess why 
Sadie is shakin’ her head so emphatic. 

But when little Sister starts trailin’ down in- 
formation, she ain’t squelched so easy. “I mean,” 
says she, “the one you said she was ” 

“Shorty!” breaks in Sadie just in the nick of 
time. “Wasn’t that the Boomer-Day’s limousine 
that just drove in?” 


232 MEET 'EM WITH SHOETY McCABE 


“I didn't notice," says I. “Was it, Sully!" 

“Ye-e-e-s, sir," says he, kind of gaspy, at the 
same time pushin’ away his half-finished plate of 
ice cream and startin' to get np. 

“Well, you don't have to go," says I. “What's 
the idea?" 

“I — I thought I'd go up to my room," says Sully. 
“I — I don't feel so well." 

“Oh, all right," says I. “Sister, you might run 
along up to the nursery, too. Yes, you can take 
your cake with you." And I'll bet Sadie was more 
or less relieved that the discussion about bedroom 
sets had been postponed. 

But a more serious subject than that was waitin' 
to be sprung on us in the livin' room. For Mrs. 
Boomer-Day was there, with her darling son Har- 
old. And Harold looked a good deal the worse for 
wear. He's a tall, slim, pasty-faced youngster, a 
couple of years older than Sully, and since he's 
graduated from short pants he gets himself up to 
look like a young sport. That is, as much as he can. 
Just now though he's wearin' a lump on the left 
side of his pallid brow and his right eye is tinted 
up in shades of blue and purple. 

“Why," exclaims Sadie, “whatever has happened 
to Harold?" 

Mrs. Boomer-Day heaves her heavy shoulders 
tragic and announces stern “This, Mrs. McCabe, 
is the work of your son." 

“Sully!" gasps Sadie. “Do — do you mean that 
those two boys have been fighting again?" 

“I should hardly call it a fight," says Mrs. 


LITTLE SULLY SPEAKS UP 


233 


Boomer-Day. “ Harold was waylaid just at dusk 
last night on his way home by a gang of village 
boys and beaten cruelly. The gang was under the 
leadership of your son. Harold is quite sure of 
that. He says it was Sully who struck him first.” 

4 ‘Why — why, this is dreadful!” groans Sadie. 
“Shorty, what do you think of that?” 

“Listens bad,” says I. “That’s why he was so 
nervous at dinner, then.” 

‘ ‘ Sully must be punished severely for this, ’ ’ says 
Sadie. “I hope you will attend to it right away, 
Shorty.” 

“Sure,” says I. “That is, if it’s all so.” 

1 ‘ But you have my word, Mr. McCabe, ’ ’ says Mrs. 
Boomer-Day, tossin’ two or three of her chins 
haughty. 

“Excuse me,” says I, “but as I understand it 
we have your word for Harold’s account of the af- 
fair, that’s all.” 

“I should like you to understand, Mr. McCabe,” 
says the lady, ‘ 1 that I have the utmost confidence in 
Harold’s truthfulness.” 

“Yes, I expect you have,” says I. “Most moth- 
ers do. But let’s see: Harold came home from 
prep, school last month by request of the faculty, 
didn ’t he ? And I expect he told you all about why 
they turned him loose?” 

“Certainly he did,” says Mrs. Boomer-Day de- 
fiant. 

“Did it tally with the letter you got from the 
head master?” I asks. 

“The head master was quite unjust,” says she. 


234 MEET 'EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


“He was influenced by some of the instructors who 
were jealous of Harold's popularity. ' ' 

“Oh, it was that way, was it!” says I. “But 
wasn't this the third school that Harold has 
been " 

“I fail to see what that has to do with the pres- 
ent case," says Mrs. Boomer-Day. “Harold has 
been brutally assaulted by your son. Let us stick 
to that, please." 

“Very well," says I. “Does Harold give any 
reason why Sully should do a thing like that?" 

“He says there was no cause whatever," says 
she. 

I shakes my head dubious. “Got to break him 
of that," says I. “Maybe, though, he's got some 
alibi of his own. Suppose we get him down here?" 

Mrs. Boomer-Day can't see the use, but I insists 
on Sadie's leadin' the young villain on the carpet 
and we opens court. 

“Did you do it, Sully?" says I, noddin' to Harold. 

He hangs his head and grunts out something that 
sounds like “Uh-huh." 

“There!" says Mrs. Boomer-Day triumphant. 

“What for?" I demands. 

“I — I don't wanna say," mumbles Sully. 

“Huh!" sneers Harold. “You've got nothing to 
tell, that's why." 

“Shut up!" says Sully, starin' at him hostile. 

“Here, here!" says I. “None of that rough 
stuff. You've got one more chance, Sully, to say 
anything you want to." 

“All right," says Sully. “I'll tell it all, then." 


LITTLE SULLY SPEAKS UP 235 

“You — you wouldn't dare,” puts in Harold 
husky. 

“Wouldn't I!” says Sully, bracin' his shoulders. 

It was a harrowin' tale for a Sunday afternoon; 
all about how Harold had come hangin' around 
where the gang met and had finally been allowed to 
explain the mysteries of crap shootin' to 'em. One 
or two had rolled the bones some, but most of the 
crowd was raw amateurs. They took to the game 
fast enough, though, and was kind of enjoyin' it 
until they got wise to the fact that Harold was 
collectin' their spendin' money monotonous. 

Sully admits that he not only blew in all his 
weekly allowance but had tapped his dime savin's 
bank, sold his Christmas camera, and borrowed a 
couple of quarters off Selma, the maid. He didn't 
know where some of the others got all the cash they 
lost but he'd heard that young Feltner got a lickin' 
for gettin' caught foolin' with the cash drawer in 
his dad's shoe store. 

1 1 How long has this been going on ? ' ' I asks. 

Sully says about three weeks. 

“And Harold was generally the big winner, eh?” 
says I. “How was that? Couldn't the rest of you 
get 'em to rollin' for you some of the time?” 

“Ah, he had a set of phony bones,” says Sully. 
“We caught him with 'em Sat-day momin'.” 

“It's a lie!” breaks in Harold indignant. 

“We'll hope so,” says I. “But let's see, son; 
wasn't it for crap shootin' that you was released 
from three prep, schools?” 


236 MEET 'EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


“I was only looking on,” says Harold. “I 
didn't play.” 

“Aw, lie's always rollin' 'em,” protests Sully. 
“Carries the bones around with him everywhere. 
I'll bet he's got 'em now.” 

But I saw that right hand of his sort of drop back 
to his hip pocket so I makes a sudden grab and be- 
fore he can duck I've got him by the collar and have 
fished out the ivory cubes. 

“Well, well!” says I. “The little spotted bones. 
Nice, expensive lookin' ones, too. Stand still, Har- 
old, until we see how they behave when they get a 
careless toss. A seven first roll ! Nbw again. And 
here 's a lucky eleven ! Say, young man, no wonder 
you cleaned out the bunch. And I don't know as 
I blame 'em much for being sore. Strikes me you 
got about what was cornin' to you. I'll just keep 
these, Harold. If they was found on you you’d 
stand a good chance of seein' the inside of a jail.” 

“Wha-a-at!” gasps Mrs. Boomer-Day. 

“Fact, ma’am,” says I. “Carryin' loaded dice 
is a penal offense. And it's a bad habit to monkey 
with 'em at all, as I'm goin' to explain, if I can, to 
little Sully. So suppose we just call it that the 
case of Harold versus Sully is dismissed, eh?” 

She ain't enthusiastic about endorsin' the verdict 
but she takes her darling Harold by the hand and 
marches him towards the limousine. At that, 
though, I'll bet he lied out of it. Harold usually 
does. 

And when we gets back to Miss Fannie and our 
coffee in the libr'y, I finds she's had time to re- 


LITTLE SULLY SPEAKS UP 237 

member another lovely thing that the Reverend 
Percey Van Sump got off. 

4 ‘ It must be so interesting, ’ ’ says she, ‘ 1 to watch 
the development of an innocent human soul. It is 
like the unfolding petal by petal, of a flower, is it 
not?” 

“Well, maybe at times it might be,” says I, “and 
then again ” 

I might have said something real brilliant only 
right there I happens to glance at the door and finds 
little Sister starin’ through the draperies straight 
at Miss Fannie. I knew what that meant. She’d 
remembered that I hadn’t told her which bedroom 
set. 

“Excuse me,” says I. “I think little Sister 
wants to ask me a question in private.” 


XVII 


A LITTLE LATE FOB OMAB 

T AKE it from me, these parties who are al- 
ways pullin’ that comedy line about the well- 
known human race are all wrong. They may 
think they know, but they don’t. The unknown hu- 
man race would be a lot nearer. 

Which is enough of a curtain raiser maybe, for 
the tale of how I paid a professional call, here the 
other afternoon, on IT. Milton Burch. Not that my 
cards read “Physical Culture, Taken In and Going 
Out.” Mostly I stick to the studio, where I have 
all the apparatus for treatin’ plutes whose livers 
have turned Bolshevik. But now and then, in spe- 
cial cases and at special rates, I pack a medicine 
ball and a set of kid mitts in a kit bag and go chase 
my job, like a plumber or a piano tuner. 

It was my friend Pinckney, you might know, who 
steered me up against this Burch person and urges 
me to give him private sessions when I was all for 
turnin’ him down. 

“Who is he,” I asks, “that he can’t come to the 
Studio and mix with the common herd of brokers 
and bank presidents?” 

“If I must confess it, Shorty,” says Pinckney, 
“he is my Uncle Henry. Not a real uncle, you 
238 


A LITTLE LATE FOR OMAR 


239 


know. I acquired him by marriage. And he has 
otherwise achieved fame, and incidentally fortune, 
by manufacturing brass beds in perfectly scandalous 
quantities. ’ ’ 

“Eh?” says I. “He’s the Burch’s brass beds 
man, is he?” 

“Such he is,” says Pinckney, “although we sel- 
dom mention the fact outside of the family circle. 
But he’s an inoffensive old boy aside from his glit- 
tering bedroom atrocities. And I understand he 
did not originate the brass bed idea. It was the 
barbarous notion of a German factory foreman who 
was promptly discharged for trying the experiment. 
But before the lot could be white enameled a per- 
verted furniture buyer for a Brooklyn instalment 
firm had purchased the whole two hundred and put 
them on the market. Well, you know what hap- 
pened. The brass bed epidemic broke out and 
swept the entire world. Think of it, Shorty! A 
nation which had already inflicted the telephone 
and the penny-in-the-slot gum machine on human- 
ity now added to the horrors of living — and dying 
— the brass bed. They invaded a million homes 
here, and then swept on until in the peaceful isles 
of the far seas no humble hut was without this bla- 
tant token of our wretched taste. And, of course, 
Uncle Henry became vulgarly wealthy. ‘Buy One 
of Burch’s Brass Beds’ came to be an international 
slogan, and while he sold out to a trust during the 
height of the craze, he has never been able to live 
down the evil fame which his advertising agents fas- 
tened on him. So do not judge him too harshly, 


240 MEET 'EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


Shorty. Go up to his sixteen-room-four-baths 
apartment and show him how to conquer his gout or 
his insomnia or whatever it is that poor Uncle Henry 
thinks is the matter with him.” 

“It's going to put a crimp in his daily income if 
I do,” says I. 

“Oh, I have quite prepared him for that,” says 
Pinckney. “Charge him the limit, just as if you 
were making out a cost-plus bill on a government 
contract. ’ 7 

“Thanks for the hunch, Pinckney,” says I. “In 
cases like this I always try to do ’em good.” 

So at 2 :15 a taxi unloads me between the tubbed 
cedars of the inner court and an elevator takes me 
up to the ninth floor. If I hadn’t seen so many of 
these so-called captains of industry I expect I’d 
have been some disappointed in H. Milton Burch. 
But as a rule they ain’t much to look at. Brass 
Bed Burch is about as unimpressive as most of ’em. 
Not that there ain’t enough of him, for he’s a sizable 
old boy. But in spite of his five foot ten, and his 
wide shoulders and his heavy growth of facial 
shrubbery, he don’t register very strong with me. 
Somehow I wouldn’t pick him out as a human 
dynamo. Maybe it’s them shifty eyes, or the hint 
of a weak chin under the crisp curly whiskers. 

I finds him camped behind a big mahogany desk 
with a tall vase of hot-house roses on one corner and 
a smirky, white necktied private secretary at his 
elbow. 

“Ah, Professor McCabe!” says he. “Punctual 
to the minute! That’s good, very good. Now if 


A LITTLE LATE FOR OMAR 


241 


you ’ll pardon me for one moment while I finish a 
little business. Ah, thank you. All right, Dodson. 
You may send out those checks which I have signed. 
And you may say that I will add further donations 
if necessary. Your little note to the press sounds 
rather satisfactory. See that a copy goes to all the 
papers and save the clippings for me, as usual. That 
is all for today, Dodson, I think. Now, Professor.” 

4 4 Well, what’ll it be I” says I. 44 A few rounds 
with the gloves, eh?” 

4 4 Boxing?” says H. Milton. 4 4 Oh, I fear I’m not 
in condition to go in for anything so violent.” 

4 4 You look husky enough to me,” says I. 
4 4 Nothing like swapping punches to get lathered up 
quick. ’ ’ 

He won’t listen to it though. No, he insists that 
he’s almost an invalid. In fact, I discovers that 
what H. Milton Burch wants to do most is to tell 
me about his little aches and pains. Almost had 
me buffaloed about ’em, too, until I goes over him 
thorough, finds that his blood pump is workin’ as 
reg’lar as a clock, that his breathin’ is good, # and 
so on. 

But I’ve seen lots of ’em that way. When they 
haven’t much to do but fuss about themselves they 
get to workin’ up all kinds of suspicions. 

4 4 Huh!” says I. “Little soft, that’s all, and 
maybe you’ve been eatin’ too hearty. About all 
you need is ” 

I was on the point of spillin’ some sound advice 
and prescribin’ a course of gym. stunts that would 
cost him around five dollars a minute, when this 


242 MEET ’EM WITH SHOKTY McCABE 


young riot breaks out in the private hallway. I 
could hear both the butler and Dodson protestin’ to 
somebody that Mr. Burch was engaged, but above 
their chatter rings out this cheery, high-pitched 
voice. 

“Oh, that’ll be all right, too,” the stranger is 
sayin’. “One side, fellows! Make way for the 
Caliph of Cornell.” 

And with that in shuffles a tall, slim, battered spe- 
cimen wearin’ baggy pants, a shiny frock coat of the 
McKinley period, and wavin ’ a dusty, wide-brimmed 
black Stetson that has had ventilatin’ holes let into 
the crown either by a hungry goat or an accurate 
sharp-shooter. The gent has kind of an interestin’ 
face, though. One that you’d remember, anyway; 
chiefly on account of the long nose, the strawb’ry- 
pink complexion and the generous cut mouth with 
the quizzin’ smile playin’ tag in the corners. 

‘ ‘ W ell, well ! ’ ’ says he, starin ’ at Mr. Burch. ‘ 1 By 
the soul of old Omar, if it isn’t Hank, grown up 
and bearded like a pard. Know me, don’t you, 
Hank?” 

“I fear I have not that pleasure,” says H. Milton, 
glancin’ at him nervous. 

“Who else, Hank,” he goes on, “would come as 
the Caliph of Cornell but your old room-mate, Bill 
Coogler?” 

“Wha-a-at! Coogler?” gasps H. Milton. 

And if Bill had been plannin’ to hand him a bunch 
of good news with that statement I judged that 
somehow he’d missed the mark. Hank don’t warm 
up a bit. 


A TATTLE LATE FOB OMAR 


243 


“I suppose you know what brings me on the scene ; 
eh, Hank?” says Bill, winkin’ suggestive. 

“No,” says Burch, cold and distant. “And if 
you will permit me, Coogler, it would he more con- 
venient to hear your errand at some other ” 

“Oh, come, Hank!” breaks in Bill. “That’s not 
living up to the terms of the Pythian pact, you 
know. ’ ’ 

“The — the pact?” says Hank, breathin’ it out 
husky. “Oh, that school-boy nonsense!” 

“Hank, I am pained and surprised,” says Bill. 
“You didn’t think it was nonsense when you signed 
it in blood. Hid you, now? Maybe you imagine I 
haven’t my copy. I have, though. Bight here,” 
and he proceeds to dig up an old leather bill fold 
out of which he produces this creased and yellowed 
piece of paper. “See?” and he waves it under 
Burch’s nose. 

Hank shrugs his shoulders. “Absurd!” says he. 

“Suppose we submit the case to a third party, 
then?” suggests Coogler. '“Anybody. Your friend 
here,” and he nods to me. 

That seems to strike H. Milton as an easy way 
out. Maybe he thought I’d agree with him. “Very 
well,” says he, “we will leave it to Professor 
McCabe.. But you must allow me to state the facts 
in my own way.” 

“Shoot,” says Bill. “I’ll prompt you if you 
stub your toe . 9 9 

“It was one of those silly college-boy agree- 
ments,” goes on Burch. “There were .three of us. 
Wesley Heake was the other. We had been reading 


244 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


the ‘Rubaiyat.’ Not that any of us was particularly 
fond of poetry, but those old Persian verses were 
being talked of a good deal just then, and I imagine 
we thought it rather smart to quote the stuff. The 
translator’s story of the life of the old Tent Maker 
did have a certain appeal to us, however. We were 
three friends. Called ourselves Fabians Three, or 
The Stick Togethers. And one day, in imitation of 
Omar and his two friends, we wrote out this so- 
called Pythian pact in which we agreed that if any 
one of us ever became great or wealthy the other two 
should have an equal share whenever they came to 
claim it. An utterly impractical scheme, as vou see. 
Eh, McCabe?” 

I “If I’m goin’ to referee the case,” says I, “I 
expect I ought to hear both sides. How about it, 
Mr. Coogler? Got anything to add?” 

“A lot,” says Coogler. “We meant it, every one 
of us. We intended to stick to it. As a matter of 
fact, Hank was the most enthusiastic of the three. 
Looked like a cinch that he stood to win, for he was 
the bonehead of the trio. Oh, yes you were, Hank. 
You sort of trailed around after Wes. and me. We 
were the leading spirits. You were both certain that 
I was a budding genius. I could write verses, draw 
caricatures, play the guitar and sing all the pop- 
ular songs. And Wesley — we were fairly sure that 
Wes. was going to be a rich man. Wasn’t his father 
a banker? While you, Hank, had neither prospects 
nor talent. Spent your vacations working in a 
foundry, didn’t you?” 


A LITTLE LATE FOR OMAR 245 

Burch nods. “It was that experience which laid 
the foundations of my fortune,” says he. 

“Think of it!” says Bill. “Old Hungry Hank 
turning out a multi-millionaire, while I” — he twirls 
the dusty Stetson on a long forefinger. 

“What have you been doing all these years?” 
asks Burch, gazin’ at him curious. 

“Oh, going to and fro in the world and walking 
up and down in it,” says Bill, springin’ that 
quizzin’ smile. “A little of everything, from writ- 
ing for the daily press to traveling with a medicine 
top. I have sung in church choirs for the fun of 
it, and I have dealt faro for a fixed salary. I was 
with Leonard Wood in Cuba when he cleaned up 
Havana, and I went into Dawson City with Sweet- 
water Bill the year of the big placer strikes. Some 
of the enterprises in which I have taken a hand I 
had rather not go into details about. A few were 
highly profitable for a time, more were quite the 
reverse, but all were interesting. I regret not a 

one. As for my present state Well, you can 

guess. As Omar put it so well — 

“ ‘I’ve drowned my Glory in a shallow cup 
And sold my Keputation for a song/ ” 

“Drink?” suggests Burch. 

“Why phrase it so crudely?” protests Bill. “You 
remember that immortal alibi — 

“ ‘Oh Thou, who didst with pitfall and with gin 
Beset the road I was to wander in * 

“Well, why blame me? ‘What did the hand then 
of the Potter shake?’ Anyway, I’ve had my share. 
That is, up to date. For the last year, however, my 


246 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


clay with long oblivion has gone dry. In other 
words, Hank, I have suffered from the general 
aridity which has settled upon what Mike Slattery, 
a friend of mine# down in Dallas, calls the great 
O’Hara desert.” 

He was a fluent cuss, Bill Coogler, and more or 
less entertainin’ to listen to. Also he seems as much 
at home in that swell apartment, movin’ around 
over the Eastern rugs and droppin’ easy into a deep- 
cushioned armchair, as if he’d been holdin’ forth in 
a Bowery lodgin’ house. H. Milton Burch has re- 
covered some from his fidgets and is gazin’ at him 
sort of reminiscent. 

‘ 4 Same old Bill, aren’t you?” he remarks. “How 
did you happen to find out that I was here?” 

4 ‘ Simply by reading the newspapers, Hank, ’ ’ say's 
Coogler. “Your goings and comings are fairly well 
advertised, you know. Must have a good press 
agent. And when I read that little human interest 
story about how you had come forward so nobly to 
the aid of that unfortunate young artist who had 
collapsed from hunger while working as a street 
cleaner — well, thinks I, if Hank has reached the 
point where he writes checks for total strangers the 
time is ripe for me to cash in on that Pythian pact. 
Now don’t shudder, my dear Hank. I am not one 
to insist on my pound of flesh, nor shall I demand 
one-third of all your worldly goods. You will find 
me a reasonable person.” 

“Ah!” says Burch, sighin’ relieved. “But just 
what do you propose to ask?” 

“Merely a loaf of bread beneath the bough, 


A LITTLE LATE FOR OMAR 


247 


Hank,” says Bill, “a flask of wine, a book of verse, 
and Thon. We will omit the singing; for, as I re- 
member, Hank, your singing wasn’t much. I will 
supply the musical interludes if you’ll furnish the 
rest.” 

“In inore concrete and less poetical terms, how- 
ever,” suggests Burch. 

“Board, lodging and raiment,” says Bill. 
“Plenty of room here for two more, 1' should say,” 
and he glances around at the various doors openin’ 
off the big livin’ roonp 

‘ ‘ Two more ? ’ ’ echoes Hank. 

“Couldn’t leave out Wesley Deake, could we?” 
says Coogler. “He’s in town, you know. Oh, yes! 
Running a second-hand furniture shop over on 
Eighth* aven.ue. I haven’t seen him personally, but 
I looked him up in the directory and telephoned him 
to meet me here on business of importance. He’s 
late, as usual, but he ought to be. here ” 

“A Mr. Deake to see you, sir,” whispers the 
butler, tiptoein’ im 

“Eh?” says Burch. “Deake. Well, show him 
in. Might as well.” 

He ain’t quite so seedy lookin’ as Bill Coogler, 
but he ’s no mirror of fashion. A heavy set, poddy, 
round-shouldered party with grizzly gray hair, 
scowlin’ brows and bags under his eyes. He stares 
around the group cold and suspicious, and even after 
he’s been notified hilarious by Coogler that once 
more the Fa?bians Three are met together he don’t 
seem to get the spirit of the reunion. 

“What’s the idea?” he demands. 


248 MEET ; EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


“This!” says Bill, wavin’ the creased yellow 
paper at him. “ We are met to carry qut the terms 
of the Pythian Pact. ’ ’ 

“Huh!” snorts Mr. Deake. 

“Not so scornful, Wesley,” protests Coogler. “It 
is quite simple. Here is our old friend Hank, rolling 
in luxury and wrapped in power. We come to bask 
in the sunshine of his good fortune, as he would 
have come to either of us had the gift been ours.” 

“Whaddye mean, bask?” says Wesley. 

“Well, to make it more direct,” says Coogler, “I 
propose that we give up our several and unfruitful 
pursuits and join Hank in enjoying the good things 
of life. You’re a widower, aren’t you, Wes., and 
alone in the world?” 

Wesley nods. 

“So is Hank,” goes on Coogler. “Neither chick 
nor child, and an income from brass beds that he 
doesn’t know how to spend. We’ll help. And what 
glorious times we ’ll have, recalling those golden days 
of youth when our ambitions rode the fleecy summer 
cloud and we pooled our last coins to provide the 
ingredients for a midnight rarebit in the old dormi- 
tory. Remember those forbidden orgies, eh, Wes. ? ” 

Evidently Wesley Deake did, for his cold eyes lit 
up a bit. 

“What about Hank?” he asks. “Does he stand 
for it?” 

“That matter is now before the court,” says Bill, 
wavin’ to me. “Professor McCabe has kindly con- 
sented to decide if our claim is a just one or not. 
Well. Professor?” 


A LITTLE LATE FOR OMAR 


249 


Course, it sounds foolish enough, but I couldn’t 
resist puttin’ it up to H. Milton. “I don’t see how 
he can renig if he admits signin’- the paper,” says I. 

“What!” says Burch. 

“There you are!” chimes in Bill Coogler tri- 
umphant. 4 ‘ A wise judge ! A most righteous judge ! 
As for me, I am ready to begin now, at once. How 
are you fixed, Wes.? Got to go bank and lock up 
the store, or anything?” 

“It’s locked,” says Wesley. 

‘ ‘ Then we ’re all set, ’ ’ says Bill. 6 1 And think what 
a story that will make for the morning papers, 
Hank. Let me sketch out the headlines for you. 
‘A Modern Fabian. Generous Millionaire Lives Up 
to Boyhood Pact. Fabians Three Find Each Other 
in New York and Fortunate One Shares with Un- 
lucky Twain.’ Eh, Hank? How will that look on 
the first page?” 

Whether he knew it or not, Bill Coogler had got 
to Hank in his soft spot. I could tell that by the 
sentimental flicker in H. Milton’s eyes. For a min- 
ute he sets there sort of smilin’ to himself. Then 
he rouses up sudden and slaps his knee. 

“By George, boys, you’re right!” says he. “I 
have been rather lonely, for all my money. Haven’t 
realized it, either. No congenial companionship. 
And here you are, old friends of my youth. We will 
begin right where we left off, years ago. What if 
we are but Sultans to the realm of Death addrest? 
We’ll make the most of what is left of the journey. 
We will eat and make merry.” 

“Don’t forget the jug of wine!” urges Bill. 


250 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


“Oh, as for that,” says Hank, shrugging his shoul- 
ders, “of conrse, that’s impossible now. But the 
other things — well, you shall lack neither loaf nor 
raiment. I say, .Dodson ! Let us have tea served 
for three at once. Tea with all the trimmings, mind 
you. And ’phone my tailor to send a fitter up here, 
will you? And — er — you may notify the reporters 
that if they will come to see me about 8:30 I may 
have something of interest to communicate. And 
About those physical culture exercises of ours, Pro- 
fessor McCabe; suppose we postpone them for a 
few days. I — ah — I’m not sure that I shall need 
them, after all.” 

“My guess is that you won’t,” says I, backin’ 
out with a grin. 

Say, I expect you saw the papers. Hank made 
the first page, all right. He got more space than 
the latest cabinet row or the railroad strike. And 
them group pictures of the Fabians, with Bill 
Coogler in a sporty checked suit and a polo coat, 
and Wes. Deake minus his shaggy hair and wearin’ 
a silk lid, sure was a scream. I cut one out and 
have it pinned up on the wall. 

All the week I’ve been wishin’ H. Milton would 
send for me again so I could see how the baskin’ 
process was cornin’ on. But never a word. 

And here yesterday, as I’m strollin’ across Forty- 
second street, I comes across this tall party in the 
polo coat who’s makin’ for the Grand Central sta- 
tion. It’s Bill Coogler. 

“What’s this mean?” says I. “A stray Fabian 


A LITTLE LATE FOE OMAR 251 

scoutin’ along by his lonesome! Where are the 
other two?” 

4 ‘Don’t ask me,” says Bill. “All I know is that 
I’ve quit. I’m headed for Texas.” 

“Then the reunion is over?” says I. 

“Absolutely,” says Bill. “In the words of Omar, 
Tamam Shud. Finished. ’ ’ 

“But why?” I asks. 

“We couldn’t stand Hank Burch, that’s all,” says 
Bill. “I should have known it. He was bad enough 
at nineteen, when he was simply thick in the head. 
But at fifty-five — well, he has developed into a senti- 
mental old bore. And an old hypocrite as well. 
Swore to us he didn’t have even a pint of private 
stock. But he did. We caught him taking it on the 
sly — and out of a spoon ! I could forgive a man who 
would lock up good liquor away from his old friends. 
That’s only natural. But to insult old rye by 
spooning it in — say, I should lose all my self-respect 
by associating with such a person. So I’m going 
back down on the border, w T here a little aguardiente 
trickles in now and then.” 

“How about Wesley?” says I. 

“Oh, him!” says Bill. “He went back to his 
second-hand furniture store yesterday. He’s got 
to be such an old grouch that he couldn’t get along 
with anybody.” With which Bill hurries off. 

Uh-huh ! I guess I ’m nearer right than the humor- 
ists. It’s the unknown human race to most of us, 
in spite of all the chances we have of gettin’ 
acquainted. 


XVIII 


WISH DAY WITH SHORTY 

S AY, with a little more practice I believe I can 
put this Foster person out of business. You 
know, the one you ask when you want to know 
how to get from Kokomo to Kalamuk, or what’s the 
worst hotel in Boardwalk-by-the-Sea. Only my line 
might he a little different. Yea-uh! First thing 
you know there’ll be signs up in the drug stores and 
waitin’ rooms readin’: ‘ 1 What do you want most? 
Ask Shorty McCabe.” 

Anyway, I’m buildin’ up a rep. here at home. 
With certain parties I rate almost as good as a he- 
fairy with a magic wand. And it all happens casual 
and offhand, without my hardly knowin’ I was 
pullin’ anything out of the ordinary. It’s a gift, 
I expect, like wigglin’ your ears or playin’ the 
snare drum. 

First off, there was Dominick Salvatore. We’ve 
been friends and neighbors, me and Dominick, ever 
since I moved out here to Rockhurst. Sure, he’s just 
a Dago, but there’s a lot of folks who don’t smell 
so strong of garlic that I would miss less than I 
would him. A lot who ain’t near so useful to the 
community, too. 

Among other activities, Dominick is our ash and 
252 


WISH DAY WITH SHORTY 


253 


garbage collector. Does it prompt and faithful, as 
a rule. Course, now and then he slips up like the 
rest of us. Here a while back, when the weather 
was so bad, he didn ’t show up for near a week, and 
when he did come around one momin ’ I was handin ’ 
him the playful roast. 

1 * Where you been, Dominick ? ” I asks. ‘ ‘ Indulgin ’ 
in a double header christenin’ party, or off settlin’ 
the Fiume question, eh?” 

“No,” says he, shruggin’ his shoulders eloquent. 
“Pietro, she bada seeck in heem front leg.” 

“That so?” says I, inspectin’ the old white horse 
that has his knees draped picturesque in gunny- 
sackin’. “Spavined, or what?” 

“I dunno,” says Dominick. “Pierto, she no good 
las’ five or seven year. Except for eat oats an’ 

hay. Eat hees fool head off. I weesh ” Here 

Dominick shakes his head discouraged. 

“Well, what is it you 'wish?” says I. “Let’s 
hear.” 

“I weesh I had truck fliv,” says Dominick. “Da 
benzina much cheap as da oat, an’ when you no 
drive fliv he not eat.” 

“Yes, I’ve heard something like that stated be- 
fore,” says I. “Then why don’t you loosen up, you 
Napoli tight-wad, and buy one?” 

“Too much,” says Dominick. “Some time I find 
secon’ han’ one at bargain. Weesh I find heem 
quick. ’ ’ 

“Huh!” says I. “I’ll put your wish on record, 
Dominick. ’ ’ 

Which we’ll submit as exhibit 1. No. 2 had to 


254 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


do with Feltner, the baker. I’d dropped in there, 
on my way to the station, to order some fancy cakes 
for a tea Mrs. McCabe was giving, and I finds him 
with his elbows on the counter, his chin in his hands 
and a gloomy look on his face. 

“I know,” says I. “You’re tryin to register sor- 
row at havin’ to cut your twelve ounce loaf to ten. 
That it?” 

“Who tell you so, Professor McCabe,” says he, 
starin’ indignant, “iss one big liar. Here, on the 
scales now, I show you. There! Better bread, too, 
as you get at the grocer’s from Newark.” 

“I’ll have to take your word for it, Feltner,” 
says I. “But why wear a face like an ex-barkeep 
mixin’ a malted milk shake for an old customer who 
used to take his straight with a dash of gum in the 
bottom? Come, what’s your private grief?” 

“I was just wishin’, Professor,” says he. 

“Eh?” says I. “Another who could be happy if 
he had what he wanted when he wants it! Well, 
let’s hear your wish.” 

“You would make a joke of me,” says he, shakin’ 
his head. 

“Maybe,” says I. “But a stifled wish is bad to 
keep on your chest. Go on, I’m making a collection 
of ’em this mornin’. What is it you want most?” 

“It’s not so much for me,” says Feltner, glancin’ 
cautious toward the back room, “as for Rosie. It’s 
one of them cabinet music machines — all mahogany, 
with a lot of records, grand op ’ra, dance tunes and 
violin pieces. She’s been teasin’ for one ever since 
she gets out of high school. And now, with the 


WISH DAY WITH SHORTY 


255 


fellers comm’ around evening, she says she is 
’shamed for not havin’ one. She says all the other 
girls have ’em, and they can dance with their fellers 
to home, and learn all them shiver steps. It would 
be nice Sundays for me, too, when I could smoke 

my pipe and listen to fine music. But ” and he 

hunches his shoulders. 

“Yes,” says I. “They do cost a lot nowdays. 
Gone up, like everything. Still, I expect Rosie can 
get along without one. She ain’t so hard to look at, 
and some nice young fellow will forgive her for not 
springin’ the Blooey Blues on him when he comes 
around. 

“She’s a good girl, Rosie,” goes on Feltner, “and 
when you got only one — well, you know. I wish ” 

‘ 1 Check ! ’ ’ says I. “It ’s on file. One cabinet vic- 
ronola. But don’t forget them frosted drop cakes.” 

Then ten minutes later I happens to camp down 
in the smokin’ car of the Commuter’s express along- 
side of Mr. H. Boomer-Day, who admits being one 
of our plutiest plutes, all except when he’s swearin’ 
off his personal tax assessment. And hanged if he 
ain’t goin’ through peevish motions with his 
mornin’ paper. 

“Eh?” says I. “Has that man Wilson been givin’ 
off more views that don’t ride well with you?” 

“Not since day before yesterday,” says Boomer- 
Day. 

“Oh!” says I. “Then some fool society reporter 
must have been printin’ your wife’s name wrong 
again. Did they get it Roomer-Day this time, or 
Boomer-Jay?” 


256 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


He shakes his head. 6 6 Mabel’s new social secre- 
tary is attending to all that now,” says he. ‘ 4 This 
is rather a personal affair, something that has been 
left to me to arrange and I’ve rather neglected it.” 

“I wasn’t tryin’ to horn in,” says I. 

4 4 Certainly not , ’ 1 says he. 6 ‘ It ’s no family secret. 
In fact, McCabe, while it may seem to you a trivial 
matter, I am much disturbed over my negligence. 
You see, we are giving rather an important dinner 
party tomorrow night — for the Count and Countess 
Barzoni — and Mrs. Boomer-Day had planned that 
a feature of the affair should be something unique 
in the way of a centerpiece for the table. I was to 
have seen our florist last week and given the order. 
I forgot all about it until yesterday and when I 
dropped in I found that all his best decorators were 
busy with weddings and dinners and he couldn’t 
offer a thing but a gold-fish pool or some other shop- 
worn device. Mabel is quite disappointed. We — 
we had a talk about it at breakfast.” 

“Yes, I expect you did,” says I, grinnin’. 

If you’d ever seen Mabel, or heard her express 
herself, you’d have grinned, too. She’s quite a 
sizable girl, Mabel. What you might call an eye-full. 
And Boomer-Day wears a 14 collar and 29-30 pants. 
I should picture that little chat over the coffee cups, 
with Mabel doin’ most of the chattin’ and Boomer- 
Day the heavy end of the listenin’. 

“Rather stupid of me,” he admits. “And really, 
I wish ” 

“Say, that’s what they’re all doin’ today,” I 
breaks in. “But I didn’t expect it from you. Why, 


WISH DAY WITH SHORTY 


257 


I thought you would he one party that had every- 
thing he wanted.’ ’ 

4 'Does anyone?” he asks. "True, I have been 
fortunate in most things, but in this instance — well, 
you can understand. I was awake for hours last 
night, trying to think of something novel in the line 
of centre-pieces. It — it is rather expected of us. 
And then, with such guests as the Count and 
Countess, who entertained us so lavishly at their 
villa in Italy ” 

"Yes,” says I, "it must be heart-breakin’ to have 
to fall back on mere gold-fish. Couldn’t you stripe 
’em with the Italian national colors, or get some that 
stand on their tails and beg for olives?” 

Boomer-Day simply stares at me disgusted. He’s 
got about as much sense of humor as there is sap 
in a brick. 

"But really, McCabe,” he goes on, "I wish ” 

"Got you!” says I. "And it’s all rung up on 
the register. Excuse me, though. There’s a party 
I want to see. ’ ’ 

And from then until I drifts into the Physical 
Culture Studio about 9:05 I manages to duck lis- 
tenin’ to people with consumin’ ambitions and un- 
satisfied longin’s. I discovers Swifty Joe gazin’ 
pensive out of an open front window into Forty- 
second street where the first warm sunshine of spring 
is filterin’ down between the tall buildings. 

"Say, Shorty,” he remarks as I drop into the 
swing chair in front of the roll-top, "I wish ” 

"Then scuttle it,” says I. "Anyway, don’t wish 
your wishes on me. I’ve got a full cargo. Say, 


258 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


anybody ’d think the Mayor had declared this a 
Make-a-Wish Hay, and that I’d been appointed 
chairman of the judgin’ committee. But I’m happy 
to state it ain’t so. My advice is, Swifty, be con- 
tented with what you got and don’t make any fool 
wishes.” 

“Ahr-chee!” says Swifty, exhaustin’ from the 
starboard side of his face. “I was only ” 

“Yes, I know,” says I. “You was about to wish 
you was young Rockefeller so you could buy up all 
of South Brooklyn for a potato patch; or was it a 
wish that they’d move the Polo Grounds down into 
Bryant Park so you could watch all the games from 
the back fire escape? Something sensible like that, 
I’ll bet. And here you ain’t got the gym fixed up 
for your session with that movie star who has to 
feature in a prize fight and don’t know what a left 
jab is from a right hook. Say, when I sign up an 
official wisher I’ll pick one that was born rubbin’ a 
rabbit’s foot, not one that was gyped from the 
start. ’ ’ 

“Ah, you’d make a prize crab quit the business!” 
growls Swifty, movin’ draggy toward the gym. 

I expect that would have been the end of this wish 
symposium if I hadn’t had an errand over in the 
chianti section of Rockhurst when I got home that 
afternoon, huntin’ up a cousin of Dominick’s that 
was to do some hedge trimmin’ for me. Which is 
how I happens to drop into Dominick’s four-room 
quarters over the macaroni dispensary. And when 
six or eight of the young Salvatore kids had been 
shooed out of the sittin’ room I had a chance to look 


WISH DAY WITH SHORTY 


259 


around. It’s furnished neat but gaudy, with a bright 
green carpet sportin' bright red flowers, bright blue 
portieres, and a shiny oak table. 

On a stand by the east window, though, is some- 
thing worth lookin’ at. First off I thought it was 
all artificial, but when I comes to feel of the leaves 
blamed if I don’t find that it’s the real thing — an 
orange tree about four feet high, with nearly a 
dozen yellow oranges on it. 

“ Ain’t tied on either, eh?” says I to Dominick. 
“Reg’lar eatin’ oranges, are they?” 

‘ ‘ Sure Mike!” says Dominick in perfect English. 

“Well, you’re some indoor gardener, I’ll say,” 
says I. “Raise it from seed, did you?” 

“No,” says Dominick. “Uncle Guiseppe bring 
him over from Napoli in littla pot. Fine, eh? Pippa, 
she t’ink so, too.” 

“Who’s Pippa?” I asks, lookin’ around. 

“Wait. I show you,” says Dominick. 

With that he reaches up to a cage hangin’ over- 
head, opens the door, and out flits a gray mockin’ 
bird. 

“Him Pippa,” says Dominick. “Listen.” 

Pippa knows his cue, all right. He takes a couple 
of circles around the room, then lights on the top 
branch of the orange tree, tips back his head, throws 
out his chest, and proceeds to let loose a song that 
would put Caruso in the second row of the chorus. 
Say’ he’s an ace when it comes to warblin’, Pippa is. 
Ever hear one really unstopper himself and pour 
out the trills? Not just a few notes over and over, 
but a whole concert. Honest, it’s worth buyin’ a 


260 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


five-dollar ticket and sittin’ in the second balcony. 

“Say,” I asks, “can you get him to turn that on 
whenever you like?” 

“If he can sit on orange tree,” says Dominick, 
“he seeng. Any time.” 

“Huh!” says I, scratchin’ my head thoughtful. 
And in a minute or so the thought has bored down 
through the bone. In other words, my so-called 
brain has been penetrated by an idea. “Say, Dom- 
inick,” I goes on, “I think I can make a date for you 
and Pippa to pull that act in our best circles. I’ll 
let you know later. ’ 9 

And inside of half an hour I’m over at Boomer- 
Day’s inspectin’ his dinin’ room with him. 

“Uh-huh!” says I. ‘It could be hung from the 
ceilin’ and the door sprung open by a pull at a 
cord.” 

“I beg pardon?” says Boomer-Day. “What 
door?” 

“I got a hunch for your dinner party, that’s all,” 
says I. 

“Oh, have you?” says he enthusiastic. 

“It all depends on what you’ve done with that 
cabinet music machine you used to have in the 
lib’ry,” says I. 

“Oh, that obsolete horror!” says Boomer-Day. 
“That is stored in the attic, I believe.” 

“Then have it brought down,” say I. “I’ll phone 
you where to send it. ’ ’ 

Course, my next call is on Feltner. “Say, I see 
you got a new delivery truck,” says I. “What’s 
become of the old Henry?” 


WISH DAY WITH SHORTY 


261 


He says it’s still in the garage and admits that 
it’s in perfect rannin’ order except for loose con- 
nectin’ rods, a leaky radiator and a few little trifles 
like that. 

4 4 Would you swap it for an A1 vicronola with half 
a dozen hooks full of records ?” 1 asks. 

Would he? He almost begs me to lead him to it. 

“Never mind,” says I. “You’ll have it before 
night, and all you have to do is hand over the flivver 
truck to a party who’ll bring an order from me.” 

4 4 Hey, Rosie!” he shouts into the hack room. 
4 4 Excuse me, Professor. I must tell Rosie.” 

Talk about rabbin’ a magic lamp or wavin’ a 
wand! Say, I leave it to you if I didn’t put over 
the good fairy stuff equal to anything you ever read 
in a book. And twenty-four hours later, as I’m 
sittin’ at home with Sadie she has to ask me why 
I’m wearin’ the satisfied grin. 

44 I was just thinkin’ what a success I was as a 
he-fairy,” says I. 

4 4 You!” says Sadie. 4 4 What’s the joke?” 

4 4 Now, ain ’t that just like a woman ! ’ ’ says I. 4 4 If 
I go around distributin’ happiness with both hands, 
givin’ three families the one thing that they’ve been 
wishin’ for hardest, it’s a joke, is it?” 

4 4 But who, how?” demands Sadie. 

So I has to tell her how I got a four-cylinder sub- 
stitute for Dominick’s spavined Pietro, how I’ve sat- 
isfied Rosie Feltner’s longin’ for canned jazz music, 
and what a smart-set surprise act I’ve helped the 
Boomer-Days slip to the Count and Countess 
Barzoni. 


262 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


“Really, Shorty !” gasps Sadie. “Why — why, I 
think that’s awfully clever of you.” 

“Oh, quite simple!” says I, wavin’ my hand 
careless. 

“Wasn’t Dominick delighted?” she asks. 

“I had all I could do to keep him from kissin’ 
me,” says I. 

“And I’m sure the Feltners were pleased,” she 
goes on. 

“Old man Feltner nearly wept on them drop 
cakes,” says I. “I expect he’s already got Rosie 
married to a rich plumber with a jazz disposition.” 

“And the Count and Countess must be getting a 
thrill about now,” she adds. “Just think! A 
mocking bird singing in an orange tree! Why, it 
will make them think they’re back in Italy. And 
you arranged it all yesterday afternoon?” 

“Just used the little old bean,” says I. “That’s 
all it needs to spread sunshine where there is gloom 
— a kind heart and a little dome work. Course, I 
don’t claim any special credit.” 

“Oh, no,” says Sadie sarcastic. “Of course! 
But honestly, Shorty, I didn’t think it was in you.” 

“N}o,” says I. “You never do. But ask Mrs. 
Boomer-Day tomorrow.” 

Trust Sadie. She does. And when I comes home 
that night she hands me the report prompt. 

“Pippa didn’t make so much of a hit, after all,” 
she says. “The Countess was nervous all the time 
he was loose, she was so afraid the bird would light 
on her hair. And the Count is so deaf, you know, 
he can’t hear anything but a siren whistle. Before 


WISH DAY WITH SHORTY 263 

the fish was served they had to call in Dominick to 
catch Pippa and put him back in his cage.” 

‘ ‘ But how about the orange tree with real oranges 
growin’ on it?” I ask. 

“The Countess didn’t know until after dinner that 
it wasn’t artificial,” says Sadie. 

“'Huh!” says I. “Well, the Feltners are happy, 
anyway . 9 9 

I was sure of that until I happened into the bakery 
two or three days later and was tryin 9 to give Felt- 
ner another order. It’s a little hard makin’ him 
understand on account of the Blooey Blues bein’ 
ground out boisterous in the next room. 

“Hey, Rosie!” he shouts. “Can’t you let up on 
that infernal racket a minute yet? Yeouw — zing! 
Yeouw-zing! All day and all night is too much of 
that. I got a few nerves, remember, and pretty 
quick I come with a hatchet. You hear me, Rosie !” 

Still there was Dominick, revellin’ in all the joy 
that a flivver truck can bring. That is, there he 
was until I finds him this mornin’, halfway down to 
the station, with his coat off and the sweat runnin’ 
down his face and blisters on both hands from 
windin’ up Lizzie. 

“Eh?” says I. “What’s wrong with the flivver, 
Dominick? Has it balked on you?” 

“All time balk,” says Dominick. “More than 
one hour I crank her, and all she do is make noise 
like tom-cat. Fsst! Fsst! I t’ink she nodamgood. 
I weesh ” 

“Don’t Dominick!” says I. “It’s a bad habit. 
Anyway, don’t register your wishes with me. I’m 


264 MEET 'EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


off that line. Absolutely. As I frame it up the 
things folks think they want are the things they get 
tired of quickest. Course, I can’t stop ’em from 
havin’ their little wants, but after this they can 
wish themselves black in the face for all of me. As 
a he-fairy I don’t rate one-two-sixteen.” 

Did I admit as much to Sadie? Say, what’s the 
use ? She knew it all along. 


XIX 


LEAVING IT TO SULLY 

N OW, Shorty McCabe !” says Sadie. “You’ve 
just got to, that’s all.” 

And say, when friend wife calls you by 
your full name and gets on that injured look and 
uses that tone of voice — well, you know how it is. 
Maybe you know what to do at that stage of the 
game, too. I don ’t. Up to a certain point I can 
josh through a fireside debate and split about fifty- 
fifty. But when I get a flat ultimatum hurled right 
at my front teeth I’m about as much good at domes- 
tic diplomacy as a bull pup tryin’ to convince a 
mother cat how he only meant to take a friendly 
sniff at her kittens. 

In other words, I get mulish. Uh-huh ! The streak 
is there all right. As a rule I keep it well under the 
surface, but once in a while, when I’m scratched 
deep enough, it comes to the top. You can almost 
see me wave my ears. 

“Oh, I have, have I?” says I, indicatin’ sarcasm. 
No, it wasn’t the familiar case of whether or not 
I should wear my open-face suit to some evenin’ 
affair. We thrash that out about every so often and 
if I’d kept a record of how many times I’d lost out 
by cuttin’ a nick in the wardrobe door it would be 
265 


266 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


pretty well notched up. This was just as serious 
a question though. Anyway, that’s the way Sadie 
seems to take it. 

You see, she had a society act all framed up. 
Nothing less than an afternoon tea. Course, she’d 
had ’em before, but mainly they’d been hen parties. 
This one, though, was to be a mixed sandwich fight, 
a he-and-she party, with almost everybody in the 
neighborhood who had any social ratin’ asked in. 
The big idea, I gather, is to pay off a lot of similar 
debts at one whack, and incidentally to let certain 
parties know that we’d had the livin’ room done 
over in old ivory and French gray, with window 
hangin’s and chair coverin’s to match. And to 
make it a real smart event, one that would be good 
for half a column in the society notes of the “ Rock- 
hurst Register,” she’d planned to include some 
choice specimens of the male of the species. Also 
I’m shocked and pained to discover that I’m ex- 
pected to stick around durin’ the tea orgy. 

‘ 4 No,” says I. “Absolutely not. I’ve been dragged 
into church weddin’s, and lived through ’em; I’ve 
managed to struggle through formal dinners at 
the Purdy-Pells; and I take you to dances at the 
Yacht Club now and then. But there’s a limit, 
Sadie, and the letterin’ on the boundary line reads 
‘Afternon Teas.’ Sorry, but I’m off ’em for life.” 

“Why, you’ve never been to one,” she protests. 

“I’ve listened in on ’em from the outside,” says 
I. “That’s enough. Honest, now Sadie, can you 
picture me backed into a corner balancin’ a sand- 
wich plate and a cup and saucer in one hand, a hunk 


LEAVING IT TO SULLY 


267 


of cake in the other, a palm leaf ticklin , me in the 
neck, and me tryin’ to pass out the sprightly chatter 
to a couple of fat old dames like Mrs. Boomer-Day 
and ” 

“ Other men do it and survive,” breaks in Sadie. 
“Why can’t you?” 

“What others?” I asks. 

“Well, Pinckney,” she says. 

“Oh, him!” says I. “Why, he was brought up 
tellin’ sweet young things whether he’d have cream 
or two lumps and lemon. He was born parlor broke 
and never had to learn what to do with his hands 
or how to sit down in frock coat without mussin’ 
the tails. Who else you got on your list?” 

“Why,” says she, “Mr. Boomer-Day is coming, 
and the Reverend Tutt, and Mr. Purdy-Pell and — ” 

“I’d fit in fine with that combination, wouldn’t 
I?” says I. “Suppose I should ask the Reverend 
Tutt how he was bettin’ on Dempsey, or get Purdy- 
Pell started statin’ his views on the administra- 
tion, or make some break to Boomer-Day like askin’ 
if the Missus wasn’t a little overweight this sea- 
son?” 

That should have been a good line, too. I leave 
it to you. But it don’t get me anywhere with Mrs. 
McCabe. That is, nowhere that I was headin’ for. 
As a matter of fact it lets me in bad. She tells me 
all about it, prompt and eloquent. What is she go- 
ing to say, she wants to know, when people look 
around and ask where I am? For if all the other 
men are there and I’m missin’ it will look queer. 
Must she admit that with all the trainin’ I’ve had 


268 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


I’m still too rough in the neck to mingle in polite 
society? And if she didn’t admit it, wouldn’t they 
think it, anyway? And how do I suppose that’s go- 
ing to make her feel? Eh? 

Say, after two or three chapters of this she had 
me scrapin’ my front hoof. But that mulish streak 
was still uncovered. All I could do was wag my 
head stubborn and get red in the ears. 

“What do I care what they think?” says I. “I 
may he rough in the neck and low in the brow, but 
I’m not soft enough in the head to stand for a pink 
tea. Not me. I know what them affairs are, and if 
there’s any lower form of social entertainment, so 
called, from a Siwashpotlach to the annual outing 
of Plumbers’ Union No. 26, 1 ain’t discovered it yet. 
And if you think I’m goin’ to stand around lookin’ 
foolish among a lot of gabblin’ women for a whole 
afternoon you’ve got me down wrong. I just can’t 
see myself doin’ it, Sadie. If I should I’d blush 
at myself every time I looked in the glass for the 
next month.” 

And, strange to say, for once that ended the ar- 
gument. I’d won out. But about two more vic- 
tories like that and one of us would be establishin’ 
a residence in Reno. Sadie don’t say another word 
on the subject, but I could see her lip quiver as she 
walked off, and for the next twenty-four hours or 
so my standin’ in our happy home was about that of 
a handcuffed defendant who’s been found guilty on 
two counts and is waitin ’ to be sentenced. 

I could have stood it better if the children hadn’t 
somehow gathered the idea that I’d committed a 


LEAVING IT TO SULLY 


269 


great crime. I expect Little Sister was kind of 
vague about it, but from Sully ’s actions she got 
wise that I was in deep disgrace. He discovers it 
durin’ dinner when our usual lively table chat gives 
way to a gloomy silence. 

“What’s matter, Pop?” he demands. 

“Now never mind, Sully,” warns Sadie. 

“Ah, why not tell him?” says I. “Want him to 
think I’ve been caught in a Red raid, or pinched 
for settin’ fire to an orphan asylum?” 

“You wouldn’t understand, Sully,” goes on 
Sadie, ignorin’ me altogether, “but your father has 
seen fit to class himself as a social outlaw. He 
claims that he isn’t civilized enough to appear in 
his own home when I am entertaining a few of my 
friends.” 

“Huh!” says Sully, glancin’ at me accusin’. “I 
know. He’s goin’ to duck the tea.” 

“Precisely,” says Sadie. “And I am ashamed 
for him.” 

“Aw, Pop!” protests Sully. “Why not take a 
chance ? ’ ’ 

“Now that’ll do from you, young man,” says I 
grouchy. 

It wasn’t until the next mornin’ either, that I 
thought up this weak excuse. “I ought to take 
Sully to town and get him some new knicker suits 
and a pair of shoes,” says I. “Besides, you don’t 
want him knockin’ around while the tea party’s goin’ 
on, do you?” 

“Oh, very well,” says Sadie, sighin’. 

As a general thing, too, that would have had 


270 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


Sully wearin’ a wide grin, with the prospects of 
dodgin’ school for a whole day, spendin’ the fore- 
noon at the Physical Culture Studio talkin’ to 
Swifty Joe, and havin’ luncheon with me at a chop 
house. But this time it’s evident that he ain’t got 
so much enthusiasm for associatin’ with a dad who, 
when it comes to a pinch, don’t rate with such par- 
ties as the Reverend Tutt, or Purdy-Pell, or even 
Boomer-Day. Funny, ain’t it, how they’ll always 
side with mother? That is, it’s funny when it don’t 
come quite so close home. 

Sully don’t favor me with his usual line of fool 
questions on the train ride in. Mostly he looks out 
of the window without passin’ any remarks. And 
he don’t tease to patronize the candy butcher, or 
demand an ice cream soda when we strike the Grand 
Central. Oh, yes, he kept me in my place, all right. 
He showed me where a disgraced parent ought to 
be, and all my little stabs at establishin’ friendly 
relations once more didn’t get over at all. I expect 
even the clothing store clerk caught the situation 
for he hardly consults me at all, but lets Sully do 
all the decidin’ between suits. And blamed if Joe, 
my old chop house waiter, don’t catch it and sug- 
gest that maybe the youngster knows better what he 
wants for luncheon than I do. 

By that time I’m so squelched that I lets Sully 
make a meal off three kinds of pastry and a dish 
of ice cream. So you can see where I stood. My 
stock as a dad was way below par with no bids 
quoted. 

And that kind of got me grittin’ my teeth. Also 


LEAVING IT TO SULLY 


271 


I expect I worked up that old ring smile of mine 
that I used to spring when a round or two had been 
goin’ against me. Was I goin’ to quit just because 
I had the fam’ly down on me? Then I got my 
hunch. 

“The Giants are playin’ a double-header up at 
the Polo grounds, Sully,” says I. “How about tak- 
in’ it in?” 

Sully gasps a bit, then smothers it and observes 
careless: “Oh, all right.” 

And him one of the biggest ball fans for his 
inches you could find anywhere in Westchester 
county! Ain’t he star pitcher and captain of the 
Grade Six nine that played the Eighth Grade com- 
bination clean oft its feet last spring? And can’t 
he give you all the leadin’ battin’ percentages, and 
tell you the latest rulin’ on spitballs, or who the 
batteries were out at Cincinnati when the pennant 
was won? So an invite to see a big league double- 
header should have had him dancin’ on his toes. 
It don’t, though. 

But I don ’t let on to take any notice of this strange 
behavior. After I’ve given Swifty a few instruc- 
tions about takin’ care of some reg’lars I was ex- 
pectin’ that afternoon I tows Sully over to the L 
station and we joins the mob streamin’ uptown. 

“Grand stand or bleachers?” I asks as we gets to 
the ticket window. 

“Aw, let’s get as near behind the plate as we 
can,” says Sully. “I want to see what they’re put- 
tin’ on the ball this season.” 

So I blows myself to a couple of the best seats 


272 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


without any more cheers from Sully. As we’re 
bein’ showed into our chairs by an usher, though, I 
gets the hail from the press box. 

‘ c Hello, Shorty!” sings out a tall, lanky chap with 
a good-natured face. 

“Howdy, Grant,” says I, givin’ him the friendly 
wave. 

“Say, Pop,” whispered Sully, “who was that?” 

“Oh, only Grant Rice,” says I. 

“Not — not the big sport writer?” asks Sully. 

“Uh-huh!” says I. “Here he comes now.” 

“Why so aloof, Shorty?” says Grant. “Come on 
down with the boys.” 

“Oh, I got the youngster with me,” says I. 

‘ ‘ Bring him right along, ’ ’ says Grant. ‘ ‘ I expect 
this is Master Sullivan McCabe, eh? Got him in 
trainin’ to be another belt winner?” 

“Sully?” says I. “Not much. His ambition 
just now is to pitch for the Giants some day in a 
world series. He’ll tell you about his last season 
strikeout record.” 

But Sully wouldn’t tell a thing to anybody. Not 
a yip. He just gazes awed at Grant Rice and the 
other box-score artists as we follow down front 
among the telegraph tickers and sport page celebri- 
ties. I’ve never seen him quite so stunned and sub- 
dued. But them eyes of his ain’t missin’ a trick and 
his ears are stretched for every word that drops. 

“There’s the Mayor in his box, Sully,” says I, 
nudgin’ him. 

Sully gives him a glance and then turns back to 
watch Grant Rice light a cigarette. 


LEAVING IT TO SULLY 273 

“And here’s De Wolff Hopper in the next box,” 
says I. 

Sully don’t even roll his eyes at that. 

Meanwhile some of the Giants have trotted out 
for practice and over to one side Rube Benton is 
unlimberin’ his salary wing. Sully, who’s been 
given a chair in the front row, glues his eyes on 
Rube. In a minute or so Manager McGraw wan- 
ders out and is called up to the box by a reporter 
who wants to know when he’s goin’ to give that new 
Holy Cross find of his a try-out. Course, when 
Muggsy spots me in the press box he gives me the 
old hail. 

“How’s tricks, Shorty?” says he. 

“Oh, in and out,” says I. “How they runnin’ 
with you, Jawn?” 

“Say, Professor,” he goes on, “Larry Doyle was 
askin’ for you the other day. He’s sunning him- 
self on the bench here. Come on down and cheer 
him up.” 

“All right, Jawn,” says I. “Come, Sully, let’s 
mingle with the low-brows a while.” 

“Say, Pop,” he whispers, “was — was that Mis- 
ter McGraw himself?” 

“Sure thing,” says I. “Muggsy and no other.” 

And for the first time that day I feels Sully ’s hand 
slippin’ into mine and grippin’ it tight. I don’t 
know whether he was breathin’ or not as we edges 
onto the bench with all them great men. Anyway, 
I couldn’t get a word out of him. Not even when I 
introduces him to Larry and Benny Kauff and tells 
’em if they stick around long enough here’s someone 


274 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


who’s workin’ up a delivery that’ll have ’em fannin’ 
the air. Sully ’s eyes are stickin’ out like a pair of 
doorknobs and he can ’t be pried an inch away from 
me. 

Course, Larry Hoyle has to remind me of the old 
days when we first met up out in Colorado and how 
I once staked him to a hotel bill when his bunch 
of bush leaguers went stranded. And Benny wants 
to know if I’ve been on another Coney Island party 
lately, like that one back in 1905. And a couple 
more old-timers strolled up and swapped grips. 

Then the gong rang and we climbs back among 
the pencil pushers and the game is called. And 
through it all Sully sits there, watchin’ every ball 
come over the plate and every play made. And he 
hears the sport writers discussin ’ among themselves 
whether So-and-so should get an error for not ne- 
gotiate ’ that fast low one, or who earned the assist 
on that lightnin’ double play. He was close enough 
so he could listen in on the josh that’s handed a 
player who ’s been nipped at third on a steal, or the 
remarks of a batter who ’s been called out on strikes 
with two on bases and wants to unload his opinion 
of the umpire without losin’ a few days’ pay for it. 

Yes, I kind of think there wasn’t anybody in that 
big grand stand or in any of the bleachers that got 
more real thrills out of them eighteen snappy in- 
nings than a certain youngster who never let out a 
sound but nudged me in the ribs with his elbow 
about every two minutes. And when it’s all over, 
and we streams out with Grant Rice on one side and 


LEAVING IT TO SULLY 275 

Johnny Ward on the other, I expect he was a happy 
kid. 

I was lookin’ for him to cut loose with the wise 
sportin’ comment durin’ the ride home in the train, 
but it don’t come. He just snuggles up to me in 
the seat and never makes a remark. Once in a while 
I noticed him glancin’ up at me sort of curious, 
like he was just gettin’ acquainted, but that’s all. 
1 couldn’t quite make him out. 

It’s kind of late when we gets home and of course 
the tea party is all over. Sadie’s waitin’ dinner 
for us, lookin’ sort of tired and dissatisfied. 

“Well,” says I, by way of breakin’ the ice, “I 
expect a good time was had by all ? ’ ’ 

“I’m sure I don’t know,” says she. “I hope so.” 

“All the noble males showed up, did they,” I 
asks, “and displayed their best parlor manners?” 

“Humph!” says she. “I suppose it was their 
best. Most of them gathered in the library and 
smoked, leaving Pinckney and the Reverend Tutt 
to do all the talking to the ladies. The only one I 
could coax out to the tea table was Boomer-Day, 
and he dropped a mayonnaise tomato sandwich on 
Mrs. Horton’s satin slipper. Such an impossible 
lot of men!” 

“Too bad I hadn’t stayed to bring up the aver- 
age,” I suggests. 

“You!” sniffs Sadie. “I suppose if you had 
you’d have hidden in the basement. I’d like to 
know what use you are anyway, Shorty McCabe!” 

“Ah, say, Mom!” breaks in Sully. “You don’t 
know wotcher talkin’ about.” 


276 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


“Why, Sully !” gasps Sadie. “What on earth do 
you mean by saying such a thing to me? ” 

“Well, you don’t,” insists Sully. “My Pop’s 
some guy, I’ll say. You ought to seen him today.” 

“Go on,” says Sadie, eyein’ him cold. 

“Why,” says Sully, “he knows Grantland Rice, 
and Mister McGraw, and Larry Doyle, and Benny 
Kauff, and people like that. Calls ’em by their 
first names, and they call him Shorty. Yes, sir. 
I heard ’em. And we was right down on the bench, 
too, and I shook hands with Rube Benton just be- 
fore he went into the box. Whaddye know about 
that?” 

“Wonderful!” says Sadie. “But I fail to 
see ” 

“Does Pinckney Bruce or the Reverend Tutt know 
big men like that?” demands Sully. “Say, I’ll bet 
they don’t. Pop does, though. And would you 
catch any of ’em foolin’ around at a tea party? Not 
much you wouldn’t. And I don’t blame Pop a bit 
for duckin’. He’s a reg’lar guy, Pop is.” 

As for Sadie, she don’t quite know how to take 
it until I gives her the humorous wink, 

“You see?” says I. “At last I’m discovered.” 

Then she chuckles. “Sully,” says she, “why 
have you been keeping this from me all this time?” 

“Honest, Mom,” says he, “I just got wise my- 
self.” 

And so once more peace and good feelin’ settles 
down on the house of McCabe. 


XX 


THE BICKFORDS IN A BROTHER ACT 

M AY I ask, Shorty, who is your seedy friend?” 
says Pinckney. 

“Seein’ as you have, you may,” says I. 
“I expect you was ref errin’ to the long party in 
the shiny blue serge and the premature straw lid?” 

“Precisely,” says Pinckney. “The one who sa- 
luted with his right thumb and hurried toward the 
telephone booth with such a resolute stride.” 

“In the first place,” says I, “I can’t hardly claim 
him as a friend. No. That’s one of the expensive 
luxuries I’m denyin’ myself. And in the next place, 
he ain’t seedy. Not for him. Course, the sunkist 
straw lid may he beyond the bleachin’ stage but it’s 
a genuine Yippi-Yappi woven-under- water brand; 
and the blue serge came back from the pressin’ shop 
no later than 9 A. M. ; and the chamois gloves had 
a hand basin wash only yesterday, I’ll bet. Also 
you might have noticed that he was sportin’ a fresh 
collar and a clean shave. So if you’d seen Bill as 
often as I have durin’ the last six months you’d he 
hep to the fact that, considerin’ past performances, 
he is all gussied up.” 

“Bill who?” demanded Pinckney. 

277 


278 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


“ William Slocum Bickford is the way he has it 
printed on his cards, when he has any,” says I. 

“ Sounds rather impressive,” says Pinckney. 
“Looks like an interesting character, too. I al- 
most hope he comes this way again.” 

“Oh, he will,” says I, “in about three minutes.” 

“I say, Shorty,” says Pinckney, “let’s wait.” 

“I can stand it if you can,” says I. 

As a matter of fact, there’s no spot in New York, 
barrin’ the corner of Forty-second Street and 
Broadway, where I’d rather put in half an hour 
after lunch. I expect you know that row of high- 
back Spanish chairs strung along the corridor in the 
Plutoria that connects the men ’s grill with the stock 
brokers’ office? Not specially easy sittin’, chairs 
like that. Too many rough-headed nails in the up- 
holstery and no slant to the back. The Spaniard 
who invented ’em must have had a cast iron spine. 

But if you camp along in that row anywhere be- 
tween eleven in the mornin’ and midnight you’ll be 
reviewin’ an interestin’ parade of the male of the 
species, with now and then a few samples of the 
henna usin’ sex. The sudden rich and those who 
trail the same, the gunner and the gunned. And 
it’s the open season all the year round. 

We’d been havin’ our annual spring orgie, Pinck- 
ney and me, in the Plutoria grill. Shad roe and 
bacon. Maybe they cook it as well in other places. 
I don’t know. We stick to the old Plutoria, and 
wait until the shad come in from the North River. 
And say, with them hunks of roe broiled to the 
shade of a golden oak bureau, and decorated up with 


THE BICKFORDS IN A BROTHER ACT 279 


curls of crisp bacon and sprays of water cress, and 

a paprika splashed baked potato on the side 

Well, I leave it to you. After a meal like that who 
wouldn ’t feel sort of folksy and expansive, or ready 
to listen to what any Bill Bickford might have to 
offer? 

Even before the three minutes was up I saw him 
driftin , back our way. He’s tall and graceful, like 
a tent pole. Got kind of a distinguished lookin’ 
face, too. Anyway, you’d remember it on account 
of the high cheek bones and the broken nose, and 
the deep lines furrowin’ the hollow cheeks. Chiefly, 
though, you’d notice the shifty eyes. They’re 
bright brown, or maybe you’d call ’em roan col- 
ored, and they’re restless enough to belong to a fox, 
or to a defendant who was being cross examined by 
the district attorney. 

“Ah, Professor McCabe!” says he, edgin’ in on 
my lee side. “The very person I meant to look 
up this afternoon.” 

“What now, Bill?” says I. “Somebody been dis- 
coverin’ an oil field up in Connecticut, or is it a case 
of a company bein’ organized to extract radium 
from sea water?” 

Mr. Bickford favors me with a disappointed 
glance and shrugs his shoulders. “Oh, come, 
Shorty!” he protests. “Just because one or two 
of my little enterprises haven’t turned out as well 
as they might is no reason to think that they are 
all poor investments. And I’ve really got some- 
thing good this time.” 

“Anything like Blitz Motors?” I asks. 


280 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


“You know I was taken in on that deal,” says 
he. “I honestly believed I was offering you some- 
thing gilt edged.” 

“So you was tellin’ me the day before the bunch 
was indicted,” says I. “Well, what’s your pet 
wildcat this trip?” 

“A stock that is going to be a Curb sensation 
within three weeks,” says Bill, fishin’ out a high- 
colored prospectus. “Peruvian Manganese Devel- 
opments. Do you know what a pound of man- 
ganese is worth today, Shorty, in any market in 
the world?” 

“Nlo, Bill, I got to admit I don’t,” says I. “Sel- 
dom buy my drugs at wholesale, and when ” 

“It isn’t a drug,” breaks in Bill. 

“Huh!” says I. “That only shows then what a 
fish I’d be to put my money into something I might 
stir up for a headache powder when it was really 
used to set diamonds in.” 

“Wrong again,” says Bill. “But you could eas- 
ily learn, Shorty, that manganese is a substance 
which at least two of our most important indus- 
tries cannot do without. Why, the whole world is 
hungry for manganese, while there in Peru our com- 
pany has discovered vast deposits which ” 

“No use, Bill,” says I. “When I was puttin’ on 
exhibition bouts I had to cancel a date at Peru be- 
cause the mayor wanted to soak us a hundred bucks 
for a license, and since then I’ve been off them In- 
diana towns for good. Course, they may have a 
new mayor by this time, but ” 

“I didn’t know,” puts in Bill, “but what you 


THE BICKFORDS IN A BROTHER ACT 281 


might have some friends who would know a good 
thing when they saw it.” And with that he glances 
at Pinckney. 

“Why, sure!” says I. “Pinckney, this is Mr. 
William Slocum Bickford; the one I was tellin , you 
about. And, say, if you want to get in on the 
ground floor of some little enterprise that’s liable to 
be payin’ 200 per cent or more — or less — listen to 
him.” 

“With pleasure,” says Pinckney. “Not that I 
ever do any investing on my own account. The 
Trust Company attends to that sort of thing for me. 
And my knowledge of manganese is quite as limited 
as Shorty’s. I’m afraid I should have guessed that 
it was some sort of cheese. But tell me more about 
it, Mr. — er — Bickford. How recently were you in 
Peru ? ’ ’ 

“As a matter of fact,” explains Bill, “I haven’t 
been in Peru at all. I want to go, though, and if 
I can find someone interested enough in the claims 
of this company I’ll go down and bring back the true 
dope. Honest, I will.” 

“Are you a chemist, or a mining engineer?” asks 
Pinckney. 

“A little of both,” says Bickford. “I’ve knocked 
around mines more or less; all kinds, from deep 
shaft copper properties to open pit iron. Also I’ve 
held down various jobs in ’em, from running a 
blower engine to making out assay slips.” 

“That’s interesting,” says Pinckney. “When 
did you graduate and become a promoter’s agent?” 

“Oh, I’ve been at this for nearly a year,” says 


282 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


Bill. “Had about enough of it, between you and 
me. Think of living in one place for a whole year ! ’ ’ 

“Then I understand,” says Pinckney, “that you 
prefer to travel about V 9 

“I want to knock around,” says Bill. “Peru 
sounds good to me. And I’m liable to get there. 
There’s an agent for a German firm who’s think- 
ing it over. He’s interested, all right, but those 
square heads are a cagey lot. I thought I had him 
all hooked yesterday — first-class passage and two 
months’ advance salary — and then he has to stall 
around while he cables his people. I must land 
something pretty soon or I’ll have to hunt a bally- 
hoo job with a round top.” 

“I beg pardon,” says Pinckney. “What kind of 
a job?” 

“Outside barker in front of the freak tent,” says 
Bill. ‘ ‘ The pay isn ’t much, but you get your chow 
regular. Or I wouldn’t mind signing up as pur- 
ser on one of these sixty-day excursion cruisers. I 
made a couple of trips to the Mediterranean that 
way. I’d even consider taking on a head steward 
dining car snap on a good run. That paid me well 
the winter I tried it.” 

“Do you mean to say, Mr. Bickford,” asks Pinck- 
ney, “that you have — ah — had experience in all 
these different lines?” 

Bill grins and admits that he has, adding that 
he ain’t half told the story of his various activities. 
He proceeds to name a few more, beginning with 
the time when he was press agent for a blackboard 
evangelist, passing on to his three months as assist- 


THE BICKFORDS IN A BROTHER ACT 283 

ant trainer with a troup of performin’ dogs, and he 
was just describin’ a trip he once made to Persia 
with an Armenian rug buyer when a bell-hop wan- 
ders down the corridor pagin’ somebody in the usual 
bell-hop style; that is, it sounded like he was tryin’ 
to sing 4 ‘My Baby’s Arms” through his adenoids. 
But Bill breaks off his yarn, listens to him a min- 
ute, and then snaps his fingers. 

“Did you say Bickford, boy?” he asks. 

“Uh-huh!” says the bell-hop. “Mis’r Henry 
Slocum Bickford.” 

“You mean William Slocum, don’t you?” insists 
Bill. 

“Nope,” says the boy, consultin’ the written slip 
on his card tray. “Says Henry, don’t it?” 

“It does,” says Bill. “Hardly seems possible, 
but there it is. And say, son, if you find Henry Slo- 
cum Bickford come back here and tell me where he 
is, will you?” 

“Sure!” says the bell-hop, wanderin’ on. 

“Some relation of yours, Bill?” I asks. 

“My only brother, that’s all,” says Bill. 

“Oh!” says I. “Workin’ along the same lines, 
eh?” 

“Who, Hen?” says he. “Lord, no! Hen’s just 
a plain farmer. Six miles northwest of Beloit, Wis. 
That’s Brother Hen’s latitude and longitude. Al- 
ways has been, and I guess always will be. You 
see, he was seven years older than me, so when 
father checked out Henry just naturally stepped in 
as boss. He was a hard boss, I’ll say. All he 
wanted me to do was to roll out of the straw about 


284 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


4 A. M., help the hired man feed and water the stock, 
milk twenty-eight cows, and load up the creamery 
wagon before breakfast. From then until 7 :30 
P. M. he’d map out a program that kept me on the 
jump, with maybe half an hour out for meals. I 
was nineteen and husky, so it didn’t kill me. But 
I didn’t like it. We had a few arguments on the 
subject, Hen. and I, but when he tried to convince 
me with a hoe handle I skipped over the back fence 
and headed for Milwaukee. 

“More’n twenty years ago, that was, and we 
haven’t met since. Yet we have kept track of one 
another, in a way. That is, I always knew where 
Hen. was. Once when I was stranded up in Seat- 
tle I wrote asking him how about my share of the 
estate. He wrote back offering me $400, and I took 
it. The old farm must have been worth at least 
five thousand, even then. But I had a whale of a 
time for three or four weeks there. Wound up in 
Honolulu, I remember, flat broke, and only got back 
by shipping as cabin steward on a P. & O. boat. Say, 
though, there’s a Kanaka girl out there I’d like to 
see again. Yea — uh, I would.” 

“But see here, Bill,” I puts in, “if your brother 
is a Wisconsin farmer, what’s he doin’ as a guest 
here at the PlutoriaP’ 

‘ 4 Oh, it can ’t be him, ’ ’ says Bill. ‘ 1 First off, he ’d 
never get so far from Beloit. And if he did, he’d 
never put up at a joint like this. Some seventy- 
five-cent lodging house would be more his style, 
with meals at a hashery. Somebody’s made a mis- 


THE BICKFORDS IN A BROTHER ACT 285 

take in the name, or else this is another Henry Slo- 
cum Bickford altogether.” 

‘'That seems hardly likely/ ’ suggests Pinckney. 
“Rather an odd combination of names, you know. 
And if it should be your only brother, of course 
you wouldn’t want to miss seeing him.” 

“N-n-n-no, of course not,” says Bill, sort of 
draggy. “Still, we never were crazy about one an- 
other, .you understand. I don’t know as I should 
be so proud of Henry, any more’n he would be of 
me. He must be a whiskered old Rube by this time, 
with hayseed ideas and the smell of the cow bam on 
his boots. But it can’t be him. Not here.” 

“No?” says I. “Well, take a look. Who’s this 
trailin’ along with your friend the bell-hop?” 

After one glance Bill lets out a gasp. “Blamed 
if it isn’t old Hen!” says he. 

He’s kind of a heavy set party, not near so tall 
as Bill, and with hardly any of the same earmarks 
about him. Course, his eyes are about the same 
shade of brown as Bill’s, but they’re steady under 
the bushy eyebrows, and his face ain’t lined so deep. 
I wouldn’t say he was costumed in the regulation 
farmer’s outfit, either. Anyway, nothing like the 
way a stage Rube would be dressed. His gray sack 
coat might have fitted a little snugger around the 
collar, but it looks like it had been custom built of 
expensive goods, and the gray Fedora hat showed 
no cobwebs or alfalfa spears on it. Also, barrin’ a 
droopy lip whisker and a set of bristly ear tufts, 
Henry sports no facial herbage whatever. 

He ain’t as quick at spottin’ an old brother, 


286 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


though, as Bill was. For one thing, I suppose, he’d 
had no previous hunch. As he comes up to our trio 
he looks us over casual. 

“Well?” says he. “Someone want to see me?” 

Bill winks at me humorous. “Oh, not ’special,” 
says he. “I didn’t know but you might remember 
me.” 

It’s a slow, careful size-up that Bill gets, and 
then, with no jumpy emotion, hardly without battin’ 
an eyelash, Hen. remarks: “I do now. You’re 
Bill, I suppose.” 

“Right, Old Stick-in-the-Mud ! ” says Bill. “How 
did you guess it?” 

“By the crooked nose,” says Hen. “You got 
that trying to show me how you could do a trapeze 
act same as you’d seen at the circus. Ever get that 
trick down fine, Bill?” 

“No,” says Bill, “but I did learn to keep six balls 
in the air and balance a cane on my chin at the 
same time. I earned my way from Dawson City to 
El Paso with that stunt once, collecting a crowd 
for an herb doctor.” 

“Humph!” says Hen. “And after you got to 
this El Paso place — what then?” 

“Oh, I drifted down to Mexico City from there,” 
says Bill, “and then over to Havana. Ever steam 
past El Moro just at daybreak, Hen., and go ashore 
to eat fish fried in paper bags at Dos Hombres on 
the water front?” 

“No,” says Hen. “All I ever steamed at day- 
break was shorts and potatoes for the hogs.” 

“Proud of it, too, I expect?” suggests Bill. 


THE BICKFORDS IN A BROTHER ACT 287 

“I’m satisfied, anyway,” says Hen. 

“Stuck to the old farm all these years, eh?” asks 
Bill. 

“Pretty much,” admits Hen. 

“Just grubbing away?” goes on Bill. 

Hen. nods. 

“How’d your happen to break loose and stray 
this far?” asks Bill, kind of patronizin’. 

“Couple of cows coming in,” says Hen. 

“Cows?” says Bill, starin’ at him. “Where 
from?” 

‘ ‘ England, ’ ’ says Hen. 6 1 Some mix-up on the im- 
port duties I had to straighten out. Besides, I 
wanted to see ’em loaded into the right kind of car, 
and place the insurance and all. Darned nuisance, 
but I had to come on.” 

“Must be some valuable cows,” says Bill. “What 
do you rate ’em at?” 

“Oh, about six thousand apiece,” says Hen. 

Bill lets out a whistle. “Come now, Hen.,” says 
he, “you don’t mean to tell me the old farm pro- 
duces enough to let you buy cows at that price?” 

“Might not, at that,” admits Hen. “But I’ve 
bought up a few other farms since, and with what I 
get out of the creamery, and my salary as president 

of the bank Well, I guess I can afford cows 

like that, Bill. I’ve got a dozen or more just as 
good, anyway.” 

For a second or so Bill gawps at him. “Why,”' 
says he, “you — you must be a rich man, Hen.?” 

“Me?” says Hen. “No, no! Fairly well fixed 
for a farmer, maybe; but not rich, Bill.” 


288 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


“You’re staying here at the Plutoria, though,” 
insists Bill. 

“Oh, yes,” says Hen. “It’s costing me an awful 
lot, too. But they do make you comfortable here 
— three rooms and bath, with mighty good meals. 
You see, our company has a contract to supply ’em 
with all their butter and cheese. Fancy prices, too, 
so I thought I ought to patronize ’em while I’m 
here. It’ll only be for a week or so.” 

“Huh!” says Bill. “A four-room suite at the 
Plutoria for a week! You’re no farmer, Hen. 
You’re a dairy magnate.” 

“Pshaw!” says Hen. “That’s what them fool 
Chicago papers are always calling me. But I ain’t. 
I’m just an old Stick-in-the-Mud, Bill, same as you 
called me at first. You might have been one, too, 
if you’d grubbed along on the farm. Lucky you 
didn’t, eh? You’re a — say, Bill, just what are you 
now?” 

That jab sort of got under Bill’s skin. I could 
see him pinkin’ up in the ears. “Why,” says he, 
“I’m a stock promoter just at present. I — er — I 
specialize in mining stocks, you know.” 

“Sounds kind of grand,” says Hen, lookin’ him 
over critical. “Pays well, I expect. You stoppin’ 
here, too, Bill?” 

“No,” says Bill. “Not — not regular.” 

“Oh!” says Hen. “Business so brisk you can’t 
find time to get a new hat or have your tailor make 
you a new suit, eh ? ” 

Bill shrugs his shoulders. “No use trying to 
bluff you, Hen.,” says he. “I’m a good deal of 


THE BICKFORDS IN A BROTHER ACT 289 


a fliwei when it comes to pickling away the kale. 
I pass mine along quick, mostly to ticket agents/ ’ 

4 i Well, that’s one way of gettin’ rid of it,” says 
Hen. “ You ’re not ready to quit, I suppose?” 

“Whaddye mean, quit?” asks Bill. 

“We could use a new head shipper at the cream- 
ery,” suggests Hen. “Paying fifty a week. 
Well?” 

“And me anchored for life six miles northwest of 
Beloit?” says Bill. “I couldn’t do it, Hen. 
There ’s so much more I want to see yet. ’ ’ 

“Suit yourself,” says Hen. “Lucky you can do 
what you want. So long, Bill.” 

He was movin’ off when the bell-hop appears 
again and holds him up. ‘ ‘ Say, which of you gents 
is Mister William Slocum Bickford?” he demands. 
“I forget.” 

“I’m the one, ’ ’ says Bill. ‘ ‘ What is it ? ” 

“Phone message,” says the boy. “Party 
couldn’t wait. Says for you to hustle down and 
sign a contract and that your steamer sails at 6 :30. ’ ’ 

“Whee-e-e-e!” says Bill, slappin’ Brother Hen. 
on the shoulder. “How about that, eh? A lucky 
break at last. Know where I’m off for now, Hen.? 
Peru, South America.” 

“Humph!” says Hen. “So that’s luck is it?” 

Which is the end of a fam’ly reunion that’s lasted 
not more’n ten minutes by the clock. 

“Odd that they should meet here, eh?” says 
Pinckney. “As my man, Snivens, is so fond of ob- 
serving, 'it’s a small world, isn’t it?’ ” 


290 MEET ’EM WITH SHOETY McCABE 


“ Seems so,” says I, “ until you run out of clean 
shirts and try havin’ your laundry expressed up to 
some place like Boothbay Harbor, Maine, or Buck 
Hills Falls, Pa, Then it stretches out scandalous.” 


XXI 


KENNETH SHOWS CLASS 


P OOR KENNETH !” sighs Sadie, gazin’ after 
him kind of mushy and sentimental. 

“Poor fish, if you ask me!” says I. 

“But no one is asking you, Shorty,” remarks 
Sadie sarcastic. “You’re prejudiced against him, of 
course.” 

“Me?” says I. “Not a bit. Only I think such 
white-livered parlor pets ought to be decorated with 
a pink bow on the left arm and led around to after- 
noon teas by a French maid. Poor Kenneth ! Huh ! 
He ’s what I ’d call a human nut-sundae, he is. ’ ’ 

And having registered my sentiments moderate 
and mild as usual, I closes the debate by walkin’ off. 

As a matter of fact I’d been sort of fed up on 
Kenneth these last two or three weeks. He’s some- 
thing Mrs. Purdy Pell brought home from a week- 
end party over at Tarry town. “One of my dis- 
coveries,” she calls him. Well, maybe. I knew a 
party who took a chance once on spendin’ a hot 
night at a Coney Island hotel, and in the mornin’ 
between scratches he discovered something too, but 
he wasn ’t proud of it. 

Not insinuatin’ that Kenneth ever bit anybody, 

291 


292 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


understand. He’s about as harmless a male specimen 
as you’d run across anywhere. One of these slim, 
pasty-faced youths with long white fingers, a fore- 
lock of black hair failin’ over his pallid brow, and 
big brown eyes, like a setter dog’s. 

No, he wasn’t a musical genius, nor a free verse 
poet, nor even a freak artist. Play writin’ was 
Kenneth’s line. He’d had a one-act piece put on by 
a bunch of them near-amateurs down around Sheri- 
dan Square and some dramatic critic had had a fit 
over it. Must have been a sweet thing. I had the 
plot sketched out to me and I’ve been pink in the 
ears ever since. Don’t ask me to say what it was 
all about. The hero was a coke addict, the heroine 
a lovely lady with a reputation as free from spots 
as a coach dog, and the happy ending shows ’em 
going to a fond clinch after they’ve each tossed off a 
muriatic acid highball. 

How a poached egg like Kenneth could think up 
stuff like that is by me, but that seems to be his 
specialty. He’s done a lot of others that he can’t 
get put on even by the band-box companies. Most 
of ’em deal with the hectic passions of hectic people 
and nearly all end with dyin’ gasps on a dark stage. 

I ought to be able to describe ’em better, for I’ve 
had to listen to enough of ’em. Oh, yes, Kenneth 
can be induced to read his plays to a select audience 
on occasion. You don’t have to urge him very hard. 
In fact, I don’t think you could stop him at times, 
unless you used a gag. All he demands is a dozen 
or so people grouped around breathless with the 
doors locked, the telephone muffled, and a place 


KENNETH SHOWS CLASS 


293 


where he can stand with the light from a rose shaded 
floor lamp playin , over his putty-colored features. 
Also, if he’s in the right mood he’ll tell you how 
utterly commonplace and boresome are the dull plays 
the Broadway managers are imposin’ on the public, 
and how the Barrymores could play something really 
worth while if they’d let him write a piece for ’em. 

In other words, Kenneth kind of favors himself. 
He’s his own press agent and booster club, and 
there’s one subject that he’s willin’ to talk on to any- 
body at any time. Uh-huh! Kenneth. Why, one 
night over at our house while we was waitin’ for the 
ladies to come down for dinner he even gives me an 
earful, just because I’d looked him over curious, 
from the pipe-stem ankles to the thin neck, and asked 
him how it was he happens to write about such 
rough doin’s. 

“Do you work up your bad dreams into plays, or 
what?” I asks. 

“Only stupid persons who have failed to rid them- 
selves of silly old fears and inherited inhibitions 
have bad dreams,” says Kenneth. “My dreams are 
wonderful excursions into unknown lands, or delight- 
ful experiences, such as being tossed on great waves 
in a milk warm sea.” 

“Huh!” says I, gawpin’ at him. 

“But my dramatic inspirations,” he goes on, 
“usually come to me at early dawn, when I first 
waken. And nearly always in the same way. I seem 
to be looking through a door or window illuminated 
from behind with a brilliant orange light. And there, 
in that vivid space, the characters appear suddenly 


294 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


and enact the thrilling scenes which I write about 
afterwards. It is the subtle working of the uncon- 
scious ego, I presume. Don’t you think it might be 
that?” 

‘ ‘ Y e-e-es, ’ ’ says I. * ‘ Or worms. ’ ’ 

As a rule, though, I ducked gettin’ into close 
quarters with Kenneth. When he wasn’t spoutin’ 
his plays he was apt to get on sort of a whiny tone 
and a peevish, spoiled kid expression that made me 
ache to slap him on the wrist. You should see him 
orderin’ the women around, makin’ ’em wait on him, 
and gettin’ ’em to fuss over him. 

“Oh, bother!” he would rap out. “Eve mislaid 
my cigarette case again. Ah, thank you ! And may 
I ask you, my dear Mrs. McCabe, to turn out those 
ceiling lights! I detest a top lighting. Always 
reminds me of Pullman cars. There! That is 
much better. No, I prefer not to sit in an easy 
chair. If you’ll give me one of those cushions I’ll 
just squat cross-legged here on the rug, like a Pasha 
in his tent, you know. I believe I must have been 
a Turk in a previous incarnation, my tastes are all 
so Oriental. Haven’t you noticed it?” 

And two or three of the ladies would murmur that 
they had. Yes, he knew how to keep ’em hoppin’ 
and flutterin’ around. 

All except Ann Whitney. He tried it on her the 
first time they met, which was one evening over at 
the Purdy Pells, when he was gettin’ ready to read 
one of his pieces. 

“I say, Miss-er-Miss Whitney, isn’t it?” he re- 


KENNETH SHOWS CLASS 295 

marks. i 1 Would you mind pulling those door 

draperies a trifle closer ?” 

‘ ‘ I think I shall allow you to arrange them to suit 
yourself, ’ ’ says Ann, half smotherin ’ a yawn behind 
her fan. 

You see Ann Whitney had been kind of used to 
havin’ most of the hoppin’ and flutterin’ done around 
her. Rather. Not that she worked up the act, or 
demanded it, but she was the kind of girl that just 
naturally got the suspender wearin’ sex doing that 
very thing. No use in my tryin’ to sketch out Ann 
for you, for she’s the kind they put on magazine 
covers. Only I might say that her front name is 
about as appropriate as Betsy would be for an ocean 
liner. She should have been born Princess So-and- 
so, or Lady Whosit, or at least, the Honorable Miss 
Whitney. And if she’d come from anywhere south 
of Asheville, N. C., instead of from Keene, N. H., 
she’d have been christened Louanna May, or Lola 
Belle, or something to indicate what a hand-picked 
pippin’ her folks expected her to be. 

Anyway, I hope you’ll take my word for it that 
Ann is some girl, and you can play that hunch four 
ways for a win. Pick out your favorite from the 
Florodora Sextette, either past or present, and I’ll 
back Ann to make her look like a cheap edition. For 
she’s the real thing, Ann Whitney. I forget whether 
her fam’ly discovered the state of New Hampshire, 
or invented the White Mountains, or built the first 
house on the Concord river, but it was something 
like that. You could almost guess it just by the way 
Ann walks across a room. 


296 MEET ’EM WITH SHOBTY McCABE 


Not that Ann’s people have always stuck at home. 
They’re just as liable to spend their winters in Eome 
or Biarritz, or Mentone, or Algiers, as they are in 
Keene, N. H. So you mustn’t size her up for a 
village queen. I should say not. In fact, I should 
say that Ann had been about everywhere and done 
about everything, from skiing at St. Moritz to riding 
a camel out of Timbuctoo. And of course an easy 
looker like her couldn’t have gone tourin’ around 
like that without now and then meeting up with a 
noble male who would have the nerve to ask her 
to be his’n. 

“Must have outgrown the squab class some sea- 
sons back,” says I to Mrs. McCabe. “How does it 
happen, Sadie, that she’s still Miss Ann? Is she too 
finicky, or what?” 

“I’m sure I don’t know, Shorty,” says she. “She 
has had offers enough, goodness knows — football 
heroes, grand dukes, even a movie star. Why she 
has never married is rather a mystery. Suppose 
you ask her.” 

“Me!” I gasps. “Say I wouldn’t dare ask her 
how many minutes she liked her eggs boiled. She 
gives me stage fright.” 

“Yes,” agrees Sadie, “Ann is rather a regal 
young person. Perhaps that is why the right man 
has never proposed to her. The nice ones are apt 
to be too modest, you know.” 

“Like me, eh?” says I, and we swaps grins. 

But Kenneth ain’t troubled with any such handi- 
cap. After he’d been snubbed two or three times 
he succeeds in tearin’ loose from his ego and starts 


KENNETH SHOWS CLASS 


297 


taking notice of Ann. First off he’d only stare at 
her steady for minutes at a time, but as that don’t 
seem to have any effect he begins followin’ her 
around, askin’ to he put next to her at dinner parties, 
and trailin’ her through the house and into the 
garden. And it ain’t long before everybody who 
saw ’em together at all knew that Kenneth had a 
bad case. 

That is, everybody except Ann Whitney. She had 
a way of looking right over his head, or through him, 
just as if he wasn’t there, and chattin’ with other 
people with him right at her elbow. Then when he ’d 
finally crash in with a remark she’d seem sort of 
surprised to find him still present. 

Must have been quite a jolt for Kenneth at first, 
after the way he’d been coddled and petted by the 
other women folks, hut it didn’t seem to discourage 
him a bit. He kept right on trottin’ around at her 
heels, like one of those German sausage hounds. 
And when he didn’t succeed in talking to Ann he’d 
take it out in talking to other people about her. 

‘ 4 1 say, ’ ’ I heard him wdiisper husky to Mrs. Purdy 
Pell, ‘ 4 isn’t the poise of her head perfectly exquisite? 
Like an empress wearing her crown. And such 
delicate coloring — mallow pink, blending into snow 
white ! ’ ’ 

4 ‘ Yes, ” admits Mrs. Purdy Pell. ‘ ‘ I don ’t see how 
she keeps it, either, with all her golf and motoring 
and horseback riding. Still, she has acquired a few 
nose freckles.” 

“Adorable!” says Kenneth. 

“You would hardly guess that she weighs nearly 


298 MEET ’EM WITH SHOETY McCABE 


160 pounds, would you?” goes on Mrs. Purdy Pell. 

“Oh, not really!” says Kenneth, who might tip 
the scales at 120 maybe. 

Trust a woman to make neat little jabs like that. 
Yet Kenneth don’t scratch his entry on account of 
not being able to make the weight. He kept right 
on trailin’ around as steady as if he was her official 
shadow. I don’t know whether Miss Ann heard some 
whispered jokes about it, or if she was wise all the 
time and didn’t let on. Anyway, here the other Sat- 
urday afternoon when Sadie has the bunch over at 
our place for what she calls a garden tea things, sort 
of came to a head. 

I’d ducked most of the affair by slidin’ off early 
to see little Sully pitch five innings against the 
Neversweats and had only showed up in time to 
help pass the sandwiches so I hadn’t kept track of 
the early moves. All I noticed was Miss Whitney 
strollin’ alone out toward the rocks on our little 
patch of shore frontage with a pair of field glasses 
in her hand. And then, of course, Kenneth comes 
taggin’ along after her. Next thing I knew she’d 
turned and discovered him. She stops right in her 
tracks, throws her chin up and stares at him. Must 
have been kind of a haughty stare, for Kenneth 
drags his heels and finally stops, too. Then she 
starts signalin’ for me. I thought it might be for 
somebody else at first, and when I saw it wasn’t I 
concludes she needs some more nourishment so I 
grabs a loaded tray and hustles along. 

“Have a sandwich, Miss Whitney?” says I. 

“No, thank you, Mr. McCabe,” says she. “But 


KENNETH SHOWS CLASS 299 

I wish, you would go back and bring that young man 
here .’ 7 

“Eh!” says I. “Kenneth?” 

She nods. 

“Did you say bring or send?” says I. 

“Bring him, if you please,” says she. 

“Sure!” says I. “By the ear, if necessary, but 
I don’t think I’ll need to use force.” 

She simply shrugs her shoulders at that so I parks 
the sandwich tray on a handy lawn settee and 
marches back to where Kenneth is makin’ a bluff at 
examinin , a flower bed. 

“On the carpet for you, Kenneth,” says I. 

“I beg pardon?” says he, gawpin’. 

“You’re wanted at headquarters,” says I. 
“Orders from Miss Ann. Come along now.” 

“Delighted,” says Kenneth, and follows cheerful. 

“No receipt necessary, I expect?” says I, as we 
reaches Ann. “And if that’s all I’ll be — ” 

“Please stay,” says she. “I’d like someone to 
hear what I have to say. Now,” and she turns to 
Kenneth, “what do you mean by following me about 
so persistently?” 

It’s an unexpected jolt for Kenneth. He opens 
his mouth once or twice before he can get out a word. 
“Why,” says he, “I — er — I — ” 

“You can’t possibly imagine that I have encour- 
aged you in any way,” she breaks in. “You’re not 
stupid enough for that, I’m sure. And you must 
have seen that I dislike it. Yet for days I have been 
unable to stir without finding you close behind. This 
afternoon you have been particularly annoying. 


300 MEET ’EM WITH SHOETY McCABE 


While I was playing bridge you sat staring at me 
for two whole hours. Since then you have hardly 
left my elbow. It — it’s absurd.” 

“You’ve no right to say that,” protests Kenneth 
sulky. “Why is it absurd of me to admire anyone 
as lovely as you are ? Why should that annoy you? ’ ’ 

“If you must know,” says Ann, “it is not at all 
mutual. In fact, I think you are a particularly self- 
satisfied young person of a type which I distinctly 
do not care for. There ! I had not meant to hurt 
your feelings, but — ” 

“Oh, no!” cuts in Kenneth bitter. “All you 
wanted to do was to insult me before McCabe here. ’ ’ 

“I’m sorry you feel that way about it,” says Ann. 
“But you have been making me rather conspicuous. 
If we had gone out here together it would have looked 
— well, as if I approved. And I do not. I simply 
wanted to tell you, as frankly and as kindly as I 
could, that — ” 

“Stop!” squeals Kenneth. “I won’t be treated 
like a bad little boy. I won’t, I tell you. I’m a man. 
It’s rotten cruel of you, just because I’m not a big, 
beefy, overgrown hulk, to treat me like a youngster. 
What if I don’t weigh as much as you do by half a 
hundred pounds? What if I’m not so strong? It’s 
the mind that counts, isn’t it? And my brain is 
fully a match for yours. You can’t deny that, bril- 
liant as yours is. At least, if you do, give me a 
chance to show you. You ought to. But no. You 
prefer to bully me, to humiliate me before others. 
And I won’t have it. I — I’ll — ” 


KENNETH SHOWS CLASS 301 

“ Well ? ” asks Ann, gazin ’ at him sort of interested 
and curious. 

“Oh, you think just because you’re such a 
glorious, regal young person,” goes on Kenneth, his 
big brown eyes flashin’ excited and his slim white 
fingers twitchin’ nervous, “that you can do any- 
thing. I suppose you’ve been made love to by dozens 
of men, big and strong and handsome. And you’ve 
smiled and sent them away. I’m glad you did. 
You’ve been saving yourself for me.” 

“For you?” echoes Ann, starin’ at him. 

“It was Fate,” says Kenneth. “I knew it the 
moment I saw you. My psychic sense told me so. 
Oh, sneer if you will. You, too, McCabe. Laugh, 
both of you. You think I’m a weakling. But you 
will find, Ann Whitney, that I have a commanding 
soul. What do I mean to do? Tell everyone that 
I am in love with you. Yes, everyone. If this were 
the forest of Arden I would post it on the trees. 
But there’s no need for that. See all those watching 
women back there ? I shall tell them. Tell them, too, 
how you have bullied me. You think I don’t dare? 
Just watch me.” 

Honest, he has started back toward the house, and 
Ann is gawpin’ at him puzzled and worried, when 
I reaches out and grabs him by the collar. 

4 ‘ Oh, no you won ’t ! ” says I. ‘ 4 Not until after I ’m 
through with you. What you need, young man, is 
to be ducked in the Sound two or three times. That’ll 
cool you off. Eh, Miss Ann? Shall I pitch him in?” 

“What do I care if you do?” says Kenneth. 
“Drown me, if you like. I can’t defend myself, of 


302 MEET ’EM WITH SHORTY McCABE 


course. Or she can box my ears. Go on, Ann. 
You’re strong enough. But you can’t beat down my 
love for you, or drown it, or choke it.” 

4 4 Ah, come ! ’ ’ says I. 4 4 Enough of that mush stuff. 
The young lady don ’t like it, and it makes me seasick. 
How about it, Miss Ann! Shall I souse him once or 
twice for luck!” 

44 N-n-no,” says she, hesitatin’. 

4 4 But if I turn him loose he’s liable to go blab 
what he said he would,” says I. 

44 I will,” insists Kenneth. 

4 4 You are a bad boy,” says Ann. 

44 I’m a man,” says Kenneth, 4 4 and I’m in love 
with you. They all know that, of course, but they 
would be thrilled to hear me say it.” 

4 4 No doubt, ’ ’ says Ann. 4 4 And aren ’t you bullying 
me now!” 

4 4 Yes,” says Kenneth. 4 4 And I mean to a lot 
more. You’ll see.” 

44 H-m-m-m!” says Ann. 4 4 Do you know, I’ve 
never been bullied before. It — it is rather a new 
sensation. I wonder how you ’ll try next. ’ ’ 

4 4 Unless you’re afraid,” suggests Kenneth, 4 4 you 
will come out on that point of rocks with me and 
find out.” 

4 4 Well, at least I’m not afraid,” says Ann. 

4 4 Thank you, Mr. McCabe. I am going to ask you 
not to tell how absurd we’ve been.” 

44 I’m a clam,” says I. 

And as they strolls out to the point together I 
wanders back. Course, Sadie nabs me and takes 
me one side. 


KENNETH SHOWS CLASS 


303 


‘ ‘ What was it all about, Shorty ? ’ ' she demands. 

‘ ‘ Whether I should dump Kenneth into the Sound, 
or Miss Ann should cuff his ears,” says I. “We 
declared it a draw.” 

“Pooh!” says Sadie. “I don't believe a word of 
that.” 

As you might know, all the ladies was hep to the 
fact that Kenneth and Ann was twosin' out on the 
point, and they was some excited. They wanted to 
see how it would finish. But the pair didn't come 
back and they didn't come back. It got to be after 
six o'clock and time for the party to break up. Fi- 
nally the guests begun to straggle away reluctant 
and at 6 :45 the last one had gone. But no sign of 
Ann and Kenneth. 

“Some session, I'll say,” says I. 

“Dinner is served,” says Sadie. “And it would 
be awkward if they came in and found us at the 
table. Suppose you go out, Shorty, and ask them 
if they won 't dine with us. ' ' 

I wasn’t crazy over the job, but I went. And 
three minutes later I'm back wearin' a blush. 

‘ ‘ Uh-huh ! ' ' says I. * c They '11 be right in. ' ' 

No foolin' Sadie, though. She'd spotted that 
foolish look on my face. “Tell me, Shorty,” says 
she, “were they — that is, was Kenneth holding 
Ann's hand?” 

“No,” says I. “She was holdin' Kenneth in her 
lap.” 


































































































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&7 192 ! 




